


Culture Clash

by Jb (sg1jb)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Off-World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sg1jb/pseuds/Jb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accidental shooting, a wild river ride, and some ducks</p>
            </blockquote>





	Culture Clash

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place early in the series: Sam is a Captain, and Teal'c is still learning Tau'ri

 

 

 

 

**Culture Clash**

**(or, The One with the Ducks)**

  
  
Breath squeezed painfully in and out of constricted, overworked lungs. Sweat trickled down his back and from under his arms. The effort of running on uneven ground punished his ankles and calves but fear and desperate determination drove him on, overruling the growing ache in his legs. Neck muscles protesting his head being constantly turned to the right, he pounded up and down steep slopes and swerved around rocks and brush.

And yet, as testament to the stunning physical specimen he was, even as he ran Jack still had the will, air, and energy to tell it like it was. "Goddamn son-of-a-bitch slow as molasses half-blind inattentive – Crap! When the hell is he going to learn to duck, for God's sake?"  
  
From just to his rear where she ran along with him, he heard Carter squeak out an inarticulate objection, but he was on a roll and no way was he going to allow her to dent his enthusiasm. "Can it, Carter. Save your breath for yourself, because no way you're going to save him with it."  
  
Unable to scan both where he was treading and the scene below at the same time, his foot slipped off the side of a rock. The immediate spike of pain from his twisted ankle further fueled his ire. "Geez. I can't freaking believe this," he complained around his laboured breathing. "A couple of hundred feet out, Carter. A measly two hundred feet from the 'gate. I could've been in a hot shower by now."  
  
Two hundred feet to the Stargate had meant four hundred feet of frantic scrambling, as he'd dashed over to the malp to activate its RF beacon before hightailing it after Teal'c and Carter. And now, instead of luxuriating in a nice hot shower, here he was, desperately pushing his body to keep up with his rampant fear. The mission had gone fairly well – in spite of some unreceptive indigenous wildlife – until they'd decided to take the scenic route as they made their way back to the Stargate... and in doing so made the mistake of unknowingly walking between a big, hairy, smelly momma-something foraging behind the cover of thick bushes and her wandering, little, hairy, smelly offspring.  
  
What happened next wasn't really, he had to admit, Daniel's fault. Sure, he was bitching about Daniel, but that was because in this situation anger was a far more effective motivator than terror. Terror made him stumble, blanked out his mind, loosened his bowels. Anger – anger pushed him forward into positive action, made him sharper, stronger, more determined and effective.  
  
It really should be Teal'c he was angry with. Not Daniel. He knew that. But damn it, if Daniel had reacted more quickly and knew how to duck – for crying out loud, who didn't know how to duck? – this never would have happened. Teal'c's staff blast never would have caught him.  
  
Daniel never would have gone over the edge. And even if he had slipped and gone over the edge, without a disabling staff wound he never would have fallen the entire way down what was, back there, simply a moderate, grassy slope. But there was a staff wound – hopefully just a disabling one and not something worse; they had no way of knowing until they retrieved Daniel. And he had gone right the way down, and so they'd come to learn through necessity that the comfortable, scenic little waterway before long gave way to something much more threatening. Now, after an hour of running, Jack was so scared stiff that rampant anger was his only possible refuge, his best solace.  
  
The cliff-top they were running along curved left, sweeping into yet another sharp rise, and his heart seized in his chest as he mounted the slope at speed. His now-sore ankle and burning thighs screamed at him to slow down, to go far to the left instead of up, to stop, to do anything other than scale this hill. They sang with relief when, ahead of him, Teal'c slowed down and then moved toward the enticing far left that bypassed the worst of the climb, calling out over his shoulder, "The chasm ahead curves sharply in this direction, O'Neill."  
  
Good. Jack altered his path to follow Teal'c across the flatter ground, glad of the chance to cut some time and distance – and effort – off the run. Behind him, though, Carter gasped out, "Teal'c, wait. We need to search the whole way..." and Jack swore softly to himself. She was right. If, after taking the direct line across instead of following the bend of the canyon via its rim, there was still no sign of Daniel down below, there'd be no way to be sure he wasn't back in the area they'd bypassed. It'd be stupid to risk running right past him like that.  
  
Teal'c swerved sharply right again, waving them off as he ran almost directly into Jack's path, clearly intending to take on the task of following their previous route. Okay, then. Problem solved. He and Carter could cut across the smoother expanse of land to the left. It was a good choice, because Teal'c was much more capable of catching up than either of them were... catching up, that is, if there was no sign of Daniel down there.  
  
Jack wasn't sure if no sign of him would be a good or a bad thing. This section of the canyon had sheer walls rising from a dangerously sharp rocky base. If Daniel was there, driven onto those rocks, chances were great he'd be damn far from hale and hearty, and the cliff face was far too vertical for there to be any hope of finding a safe way down. Yet, the alternative was equally as bleak – it was a mess down there, utter turmoil, and he really didn't see how Daniel could make it through that and come out alive at the other end – if there even was an other end to the churning rapids.  
  
This time his heart caught in his chest not as a result of the effort he was expending but from anxiety. God, Daniel. Please. Hang on, we're coming. Make it through, you little bastard.

 

* * *

 

 

Within just a few moments of the modest current having swept him on around the gentle first curve, Daniel could no longer see nor hear the other members of SG1. The low canyon walls, along the top of which he'd seen Jack, Teal'c, and Sam trying to keep up with his progress, had quickly become barer and more steeply pitched. Not much further on, the banks of the river completely lacked the stone outcroppings and stunted undergrowth which had been his best hope.  
  
Despite painfully, laboriously dragging himself closer to one of the walls as he'd gone along, it was pretty unlikely he'd find a way out anywhere close by. Even if he made it right over to the edge, there was little chance of finding any handholds in this area. There had been a few earlier, before he'd been swept around the bend from the straightaway where he'd rudely catapulted over the side into the water. But here? He scanned the surface of the river as best he could, looking along the bank closest to him for signs of slower current, or pools of shallower water. There was nothing. Okay, so that meant he'd need to ignore both the bone-chilling cold and the shrill voice in his head which, still hovering on the edge of panic, insisted on him trying to swim his way out of here. His best option was to work on simply staying afloat, conserve his energy, and wait to see what opportunities might lie around the upcoming bend.  
  
To stay afloat, keep his head above water – yeah, well, maybe not as easy it sounded. No matter that it felt like forever already, Daniel knew he hadn't been in the river for all that long; even so, he was already tiring to the point confidence in his staying power was well shaken. He had to repeatedly fight to squirrel himself back around to face directly downstream, and to ignore the protest of his lower back and the shrieking pain in his leg.  
  
He once again dragged his arms upward through the water, leaning back, but this time his legs didn't come up as readily as they had before. He kicked, trying unsuccessfully to get himself onto his back. Oh, crap, come on. Damn boots were too heavy. He put all he had into the effort, and his heart lurched and sped up as he suddenly realised the previous slight tug of the undertow on his legs, manageable up until this point, had increased significantly.  
  
He glanced up and with horror saw the walls of the canyon rising higher, narrowing abruptly to close in on him as he was carried further along. A few more metres on, and they were all but completely barren of plant growth and more or less sheer. Oh, no; did that mean the river itself would...? And, yes, it did. Faster, rougher – a swirl of strong current under the surface suddenly caught his legs. He felt himself tip over to one side as his body was pulled downward and around. Pinwheeling his arms under the surface, he tried to ignore the pain of his wounded leg and kicked for all he was worth, making headway against the pull for a brief moment. He managed to get more or less onto his back, but the success was short-lived. Wet boots and clothing weighed him down, and no matter how hard he tried he wasn't able to overcome the influence of the increasingly threatening under-current. He wasn't strong enough. Too tired, too heavy. Had to drop some weight.  
  
He'd already dumped his pack; as soon as he'd managed to unclamp his hand from his thigh, that had been the first thing he'd done after falling in. Obviously, it wasn't enough. Getting at his boots was hopeless so he opted for the tactical vest, fumbling at the zipper as he kicked and leaned against the current. Shit! He couldn't get it undone. The zipper tab slipped out of his fingers every time he tried to pull it down. Great. Fine trip to have finally given in to Sam's chiding and zipped everything up. On the verge of outright panic, he managed to reach down, open the catch on the holster, and flick his sidearm up and out. It banged against the wound in his thigh as it left him, which hurt like hell. So much for dropping weight; all his efforts were negated for a few precious seconds as he reflexively grabbed hold of his leg instead of using his arms more effectively.  
  
The canyon walls loomed closer on both sides. The undertow angrily responded, growing impossibly strong. Simultaneously trying to swallow his pounding heart and spit out mouthfuls of cold, bitter-tasting water, Daniel kicked and pulled for all he was worth, pushing back against the current and against the terror which threatened to swamp him just as surely as the river was about to. He wasn't ready for this. Even though it had moved along at a consistently decent clip, the damned river had been fairly innocuous back there. This was unexpected. Unmanageable. Oh, God. Please.  
  
He was swept into a sharp bend, and suddenly the cliff walls of the ever-narrowing canyon virtually leapt into the centre of the flow. Helpless, Daniel entered the gauntlet. Interminable chaos followed, during which he couldn't manage to consistently keep his head above water. His injured thigh and back flared with pain as he fought against the relentless undertow. God, it hurt! He kicked, twisted, frantically pushed and pulled with his arms. Felt himself flung in six directions at once. Gagged on the vile taste. Was afraid. He wasn't going to make it. It was too strong and he was too weak, the struggle lasting too long to endure. The river was completely in charge here. Swallowing him.  
  
He was violently pulled down, under the surface. Choking. Nose and eyes burning. Kick, dammit. No! His chest was bursting, and then he was taking in water. Lots of it. Oh, God – drowning!  
  
Abruptly, with a last violent and haughty surge which snapped his head back and felt like it ripped his spine out through his navel, the undertow released him. Daniel jetted out onto the surface of the river in a flail of arms and legs, choking and gasping, only marginally aware of which end was up. More instinctively than intentionally, he fought to carry on kicking and stroking, flopping aimlessly as he coughed out water, sobbing as his leg screamed and his back spasmed in sympathy with the lead weight in his chest.  
  
Surprisingly, he found himself involuntarily tipped over onto his back before he even recognised the rapids were all but gone. He was swept down the river more sideways than feet-first, mostly afloat despite the interference of his disorganised struggling. He forced himself to overcome instinct and quit with the flailing, and found that stilling his arms and legs helped. Which was a good thing, because given his present condition any sort of coherent, effective effort at doing anything other than doing nothing was pretty much out of the question. He needed a minute. Or two. No... make it a dozen.  
  
The taste of the water in his mouth was appallingly sour, and his raw throat threatened to close up on him. Eyes closed against dizziness and pain, Daniel concentrated on keeping his head and shoulders back, breathing as evenly as possible, and trying not to vomit as he was swiftly carried downstream. Knowing his life might depend on getting his heavy vest off, he fumbled for the zipper, but this time he couldn't even force numb fingers to latch onto the tab, never mind pull it down. After a few moments of fruitless effort, he became aware of a very slight tug at his heels and rear end. He cautiously dropped his hands deeper into the water and realised there was a slight undertow, but luckily one so gentle that he could probably manage it.  
  
Cracking his stinging eyes open, he saw pale pink skies and soft white clouds where towering sheer cliffs had been as the torture had begun. Looking to both sides of the river, Daniel could see the canyon had dropped off in favour of steep, intermittently grassy banks which rose sharply from the edge of the river and after just a few yards began to slope away more mildly. He found that with just a slight tilt of his head he could look upriver toward the towering cliffs, and was startled when he couldn't see this end of the sharp bend he'd been forced through. The transition from narrow canyon to this wider canal apparenly wasn't nearly as straight nor abrupt as it had felt; clearly, he'd been swept in a long curve, and the power of the gauntlet had propelled him a fair distance beyond its outlet in just the short time since it spat him out.  
  
He also realised something else: he wasn't thinking very clearly. Instead of sight-seeing, he really needed to get over to shore and out of the water. Pain and exhaustion made swimming an unattractive proposition, his arms and legs heavy and hard to move, but he was achingly cold. Shivering. He could barely feel his fingers threading through the water. Hypothermia was a definite whether he was in or out of the water, but better out than in. Out, the cold that was paralysing his body couldn't drown him. Out, he wouldn't be dragged further downstream, away from his team who he knew was back there somewhere, likely still doggedly running the canyon rim trying to find him.  
  
The river continued its gentle curve, progressively widening now, threatening to turn from a medium-sized canal into an expansive waterway. It was relatively amiable at this point and Daniel could feel his forward movement slowing markedly, but he knew he couldn't count on things staying this way. Broad, seemingly lazy rivers could be every bit as dangerous as narrow, tumultuous ones, the currents that lurked under the surface both unpredictable and potentially tremendously strong. This was his best chance, before it widened to the point he couldn't make the distance to shore; he had to get moving and take advantage of the calm water while he could. Anything could lie around the next bend, and Daniel knew there was no way he would survive any further rough waters or strong currents.  
  
Quack.  
  
Whaa... What?  
  
He heard it again: a definite quack.  
  
Daniel turned his head toward the sound and came nose to beak with the largest, strangest possible facsimile of a... a... a duck?... ever to be seen by human eyes. He blinked, uncertain if there was actually a creature resembling something so mundane as an oversized duck next to him. Maybe he was hallucinating. Something in the water? He blinked again, but it didn't go away or change its appearance. Glittering red eyes the size of pennies gazed at him from either side of a blunt, sickly-green coloured beak. The beak was affixed to a dingy-yellow flat head which rivalled that of a giant sea turtle in size and overall attractiveness. Yes, there was something in the water, all right. Uh oh.  
  
The... duck... floated along with him on the current, maintaining a position right by his head, quacking away and regarding him with unflappable calm even when, his heart pounding with this new fear, he raised a hand out of the water and sloshed at it, saying, "Shoo." The action did not come without effort, and set off a spate of uncontrollable shivering which threatened Daniel's safe position on his back. After that, on account of the risk of drowning, he did his best to ignore the animal despite its proximity and instead tried to gauge which side bank he was closest to. Clumsily rolling over, he swept his arms through the water and struck out for shore.  
  
Or at least he tried to strike out for shore. Actually, he simply floundered. His arms barely made it through half an arc before they sank far too deeply into the water to be effective, and his legs hardly responded at all to his commands to kick. Heavy. Leadenly heavy. Now that he was over, off his back, his legs sank like stones and he could barely get enough oomph into his kick to keep his chin above the surface. Treading water was a no-go, his limbs not doing what he wanted them to do. Panic rose, and he battled to roll over onto his back where he'd been safe a moment before.  
  
The big duck bobbed up and down in the wake of his unsuccessful struggle, impassively watching. Daniel gagged on a mouthful of water, then took in more when he cried out against the pain in his leg and strained back as he gave an extra effort at twisting himself around. Scared and frustrated, he rashly took it out on the duck-whatever. "Well you're a waste of space. Don't just sit there... help me!"  
  
It squawked a bit at his yell, but okay, it didn't seem to want to eat or attack him in response. That was good. Might as well carry on, then. "What? You don't understand English, or something?" Daniel lost his battle momentarily and his mouth and nose fell below the waterline. Panicky, he surged with all he had, and came up spitting both water and angry words. "Look, this isn't a floor show. Either help me, or... or –" But it wasn't the duck he was angry at, really, and surely he should put that energy to better use, no?  
  
He made it most of the way onto his back after a brief but exhausting fight, but his legs were too tired and heavy to come up well enough for him to stay there long. And he simply wasn't fit to put much more effort into the fight. His injured leg just hung there, too heavy to use, stabs of pain shooting from his thigh up into his groin and down to his ankle with each attempt to move it. The weight dragged him down, pulling uncomfortably at his hip, and Daniel knew if he was to get any use out of that leg at all, he'd somehow have to get that damned boot off.  
  
Yeah, sure. And alien duck-things could speak English. It was a pipe dream.  
  
Quack, quack!  
  
See?  
  
Daniel hooked his left foot underneath the ankle of his injured leg, but it didn't help so he let it go and tried to kick with his left enough to counter the weight of the useless right leg. Sculling with his arms as best he could, he managed a shaky upper-half of a back float. How long he could realistically hope to maintain it was something he tried not to think about. Jack, Sam, Teal'c. They'd come before... before he –  
  
They'd come in time and fish him out. This part of the river was pathetically lazy compared to earlier, the flow along the surface so slow as to be barely even noticeable and for as far ahead as he could see there was more of the same. They'd catch up. Sure they would. The terrain was a geological jumble along the bending course of the river, the surrounding land precipitously going from shallow to steep to shallow in relatively short distances. It really wasn't all that far. His team could do it. It'd be fine.  
  
There was a sharp poke at his head. He jerked away, and the indigenous version of a duck pulled back and cocked its head at him. After a scant second, it tentatively stretched its neck forward and again plucked at Daniel's wet hair. He flapped his hand, gently splashing and shoo'ing at it again, only to more or less lose his back float. Stupid! Daniel held his breath and did whatever he could to correct the problem. The wash from his attempts to stabilise himself sent the duck bobbing up and down furiously for a moment. It paddled backward, coming to rest several feet away. Taking a deep, relieved breath as he felt himself settle back into position, Daniel looked over at the thing. If nothing more, it was company.  
  
No... it was more than that. It was the first non-overtly-aggressive indigenous animal they'd so far encountered here on P6K-831. Or, at least he hoped to hell it was non-aggressive. No doubt he'd find out, one way or another. He could only hope it'd be a good outcome – drowning was one thing; being pecked to death by an aggressive overgrown duck was something quite... different.  
  
His lips quirking wryly, Daniel figured he had nothing better to do, so what the hell.  
  
"Hi. I'm Daniel Jackson from the planet Earth."  
  
Quack.  
  
"I'm here with my friends; we came through the Stargate."  
  
Quack, quack. The duck paddled itself around in a quick circle.  
  
"No, no... we mean you no harm. We're peaceful explorers. We come to share knowledge, to learn about other cultures." An intense shiver wracked him, jarring his delicate balance, and Daniel struggled to maintain his composure as he felt his lower body sink deeper into the water. He leaned his shoulders back and pushed down with both arms, with minimal success in bringing his butt higher.  
  
Fear spiked through him. It wouldn't be long now. Oh God. Please, Jack, help me.  
  
Quack! The sound was close, right at his ear, and Daniel turned his head as he felt a firm pluck and push at the shoulder of his jacket. His upper body rolled precariously in the water and he wasn't able to correct for it. Please, no. But then the duck plucked at him again, pulling his jacket this time instead of pushing at it, and it was just enough help that he found himself on his back again.  
  
The duck regarded him implacably, cocking its head as he tried to distract himself from his rapidly deteriorating situation by speaking to it. "Ah, okay. Thank you. Boy, you sure are a friendly thing." His voice shook with cold and fear. Hardly the confident image an interstellar explorer would want to convey upon first contact. It was a damn good thing he was only talking to a duck here. Daniel sniggered to himself – he was talking to a duck.  
  
Right. He was talking to – Wait. Not just a duck, but an apparently friendly duck that had just righted him in the water. Daniel's eyes widened. "Hey! Are you... have you..." He stopped, and tried to marshal his scattered thoughts. That was just as difficult as staying afloat, though, and he had to bite his lip to hold back the grunting sob which lodged in his throat. He realised he was losing it, and not just physically and emotionally.  
  
Daniel squeezed his eyes shut as another shudder of cold tormented him. Traitorously, his lower body dropped further and as he was forced off his back his chin sank beneath the surface. Frantic, he commanded his legs to kick as hard as they could but couldn't tell, couldn't feel, if they responded or not. Not, he guessed, because he was still sinking. Tipping his head back, barely able to speak around his terror and the water splashing into his mouth, he choked out what he fully expected were to be his very last words.  
  
"Lassie... help. Go get help, girl."  
  
Quack.  
  
The next quack was muffled as the water filled his ears and swirled up overtop his head.

 

* * *

  
  
So short of breath he couldn't even swallow his own spit, Jack lowered himself to the ground at the very edge of the cliff and began massaging his calves with harsh, short strokes of his hands. Carter was lying on her back next to him, splayed full out on a little bit of scrubby grass. Obviously just as exhausted as he was, her chest heaved as she gasped open-mouthed, looking like a well-hooked and landed fish. Some short cut. It was a faster route, yeah, but as it turned out it wasn't necessarily any easier. That his ankle had been getting worse by the step hadn't helped either.  
  
He glared down at the river, keeping a constant, watchful eye on the water despite the fear, and, sadly, the growing conviction it was a useless activity. His gut twisted equally as strongly now as it had when their short cut had brought them to the edge of the cliff wall and they'd seen what was down there. If anything, the water below was churning even more viciously than it had back before the bend Teal'c was still following. Jack was close to admitting out loud there was little hope now. The chasm was narrow here, so dangerously narrow and the river frighteningly fast, and it appeared to carry on that way through the upcoming curve. There was no reason to think it'd be any different beyond the next bend up ahead.  
  
If Daniel had gone through here, he probably would have been washed so far ahead of them by the rushing water that by the time they could catch up... . Well. Hell. It'd take them a long time. And if the flow continued to be this fast further on, then the time involved in trying to catch up would be prohibitive. They'd need to return to the 'gate for help, and it was unlikely SG1 would be involved in the continued S&R – the 'R' part being equivocal.  
  
There was a chance that Daniel hadn't gone through here, although that thought wasn't necessarily encouraging either. If he hadn't gone though and was somewhere back in the stretch Teal'c was surveying, there was no way they'd find him unless he was right at the surface, snagged up on the rocks at the base of the cliff. Where they wouldn't be able to get to him.  
  
Jack gave up punishing his legs and scrubbed at his sweaty hair, ashamed of himself for giving up on Daniel. Because that's what he'd done the moment he'd looked down and seen how narrow the canyon and the river below had become, and how turbulent the water was. Daniel had been hit by Teal'c's staff blast, suffering God only knew how serious an injury. Serious enough that he hadn't been able to stop his fall down the relatively shallow slope near the Stargate – it was stupid to continue hoping that Daniel could successfully battle that rough current, and especially these rapids, for all this way.  
  
Still, though, Jack found he couldn't stop watching for Daniel, even though he was damn certain he wouldn't see him suddenly appear in the water below, washed along ahead of Teal'c but behind him and Carter. No, Daniel was long gone, either way past their position or... or... just, or.  
  
Noises told him Carter was on the move, and sure enough he felt her hand on his shoulder as she crouched next to him. "I'll watch now, Colonel. You should take a break."  
  
Take a break? Hell yes, Carter, thanks. Whaddaya got? He'd love to break something.  
  
"He'll make it," Carter whispered. "He's a strong swimmer. He can do it."  
  
Even though he knew she was talking more to herself than to him, and that she needed to believe, Jack couldn't hold back a bitter response. "Yeah. Olympic class. A real water-rat. Being nailed by a staff weapon on entry shouldn't slow him down a bit."  
  
Carter's choked swallow was so loud it sounded like it came from his own throat. He apologised, telling her she was right and he was just being irritable. Then he apologised, silently, to Daniel. God. He was so sorry. Sorry he hadn't been faster, that he hadn't been able to jump in the way and take the blast Daniel hadn't even seen coming. Sorry he hadn't had time to draw that hairy, smelly, snarling beast away before it lunged at Daniel, so that Teal'c's shot at it wouldn't have come anywhere near Daniel. Most of all, he was sorry he didn't have enough faith to convince himself Daniel still had a chance. He wanted to believe they'd find him somewhere downsream slightly damaged but alive, sunning himself on a rock while waiting for them to catch up – but he didn't.  
  
He wasn't sorry, mind you, for being annoyed with Daniel's apparent inability, for crying out loud, to smartly hop-to when someone yelled "Duck!".  
  
"O'Neill." Their comms farted out his name and Jack responded automatically, still not taking his eyes off the river. Teal'c came back at them, his words shot out in short, staccato bursts, evidence of his rapid pace. "I am within sight of your position. There has been no sign of Daniel Jackson below."  
  
Glancing over at Carter to be sure she had her eyes peeled for the prize, Jack tore his own gaze from the river and looked up, across the way, following the edge of the canyon rim. He saw Teal'c's small figure in the distance, steadily growing larger as he approached them. Teal'c had made good time. When he was close enough to them it was clear that among the three of them they'd not missed checking any part of the river, Jack nudged Carter, telling her she could stand down from her watch. She pointedly ignored him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to smack her or kiss her for that.  
  
Under ten minutes, and then Teal'c was there, sitting on the ground with them, first taking a good look at the river below and then staring off toward the next bend with a murderous expression on his face. Tension flowed from him in stifling waves, infecting the air around him. Carter murmured her "he'll make it" mantra to Teal'c but that only seemed to feed the strained atmosphere. It pulled at Jack, sucking at his skin, sending creepy-crawlies all through him. More to put an end to the power of the unspoken than anything else – because, being honest with himself, he really wasn't sure how he felt about this – Jack cleared his throat and mumbled, "It's not your fault, Teal'c. It was an accident."  
  
Teal'c all but erupted in flames – in a typically stiff Teal'c-ish sort of way, that is. "It was not an accident, O'Neill. It was in fact a grave error in judgement." He climbed to his feet, stomped a few paces away, and then wheeled back to face them. After standing stock still for a moment, he abruptly took a two-handed, horizontal grip on his staff and thrust the weapon toward Jack. "I am responsible for the loss of Daniel Jackson," he announced, as if it were some grandly terrible proclamation that ought to set the world on its edge, and continued to stiffly hold out the staff weapon.  
  
Oh for... . Jack figured he was expected to either confirm Teal'c's responsibility by taking the staff, or to negate it by dismissing his behaviour as unnecessary. But this sort of melodrama wasn't something Jack had any patience for right now. The Jaffa honour stuff was bullshit here, plain and simple, and he wasted no time in telling Teal'c so. He put himself in Teal'c's face and shoved at the staff, knocking Teal'c back a step. "Screw this crap, Teal'c. Fine, I lied – I haven't decided yet if it was your fault or not, and you know what, I'm really not into trying to figure that out right now."  
  
He leaned forward, feeling his anger rise to almost uncontrollable heights as Teal'c immediately took a chastened step back, meekly giving in to his advance. He jabbed a finger into Teal'c's vest, closer to wanting to assault a team member than he'd ever been before. Even with Daniel. "You're of no use to me bleating like a wounded sheep, Teal'c. I don't give a rat's ass about what you think of yourself. Don't stand here going all Jaffa-chic-submissive on us when Daniel's –"  
  
He stopped abruptly, his jaw snapping shut on the word the millisecond he realised what he had just been about to say out loud. The anger and grief drove him away from both Teal'c and the hated canyon. He turned, walked away, and didn't look back.

 

* * *

 

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch.  
  
More ouches than he could possible count or hope to keep track of. Especially since he wasn't really even here, right? He was asleep in his warm bed and all this was just a sick, terrible, bad dream. His chest wasn't really full of lead, his breathing so painful and laboured that it was a toss-up as to whether or not it'd be better to just stop breathing altogether. His throat didn't hurt so much he couldn't even swallow, his head not pounding, and his limbs weren't actually frozen into prickling masses of screaming nerve endings –  
  
And, especially, there wasn't really a big huge alien bird pecking chunks of flesh out of his body.  
  
What?  
  
What!  
  
Daniel jerked fully awake, understanding of his situation – to this point, only having been experienced in foggy intervals of half-aware confusion – suddenly all too real. "Gahh!" He screamed in terror and pain, and tried to roll away from the huge beak torturing him. Vertigo hit him, and his throat immediately closed up, his stomach turning inside-out. Instead of rolling, he found himself flailing ineffectively like an overturned turtle, retching up gouts of bitter water all over himself. The only plus was that the owner of the concrete pecker stopped its activity and moved away.  
  
Breathing through his distress was worse torture than the beak had been. Daniel clawed at the rocks beside him and managed to push and pull himself over onto his side. For what seemed forever, he grunted, groaned, puked, and otherwise suffered his way past pain, nausea, and the initial shock of waking to find himself lying on his back on the rocks, still partly in the water, half-drowned and apparently being systematically aerated by a monsterous duck-like bird.  
  
No, wait. Scratch that? As the vertigo subsided and panic and pain gave way to clearer thinking, Daniel rolled just enough to take a quick look at himself where the bird had been. There weren't, in fact, any gaping holes in him. Instead, the laces of his vest at his side were pulled asunder, broken and trailing on the ground in some places while pulled taut against the vest in others. Plus there were chunks of fabric missing from his jacket along his side, under the vest, and along the underside of his arm where it had been outflung from his body. Okay, so, good. That was good. He could lie back and die in peace now, safely assured he wasn't being eaten alive.  
  
His last memory was a hazy one of being underwater, his lungs on the verge of being forced to accept fluid in place of air. The question of how he had got from there to here prodded at him only briefly, easily pushed aside. He hadn't enough energy to be inquisitive, having enough trouble simply drawing breath. His chest spasmed and the ache in his back flared with each inspiration; paying attention to anything but that was near impossible, so all else was just going to have to wait.  
  
Once he got to the point he no longer thought death would to preferable to breathing, Daniel carefully tried to do a self-assessment. He felt terrible. Deathly ill. It hurt, 'it' being... everything. His chest, his head, his throat, his thigh and lower back. Every inch of his half-frozen body. But that shouldn't be unexpected, should it? After all, he'd been attacked by a big snarly thing with long teeth and claws, shot in the leg by a staff weapon, had plummeted into a raging river and very nearly drowned, and was soundly hypothermic.  
  
Boy, what a day he'd had so far.  
  
No doubt Jack would be livid with him. "Sorry, Jack," he croaked, his throat burning. He heard a rustle nearby and tilted his head, catching sight of a mass of mixed dirty grey and brown coloured feathers approaching. He blinked to clear his vision, wondering why the thing seemed so much larger now than it had, from what he remembered, while bobbing next to him in the water. Must be his vision playing tricks on him, or maybe his light-headedness and headache distorting his senses, he decided. But then, with a rush of fear, he realised this wasn't the same bird. Held helpless by his physical condition, he could only lie there and watch it lumber closer and closer, to come right up next to him and loom over him like an avian version of King Kong. It stared down at him from the same red-coloured eyes as the other one, but the head and beak of this one seemed darker than what he could recall of the smaller bird.  
  
Then it quacked at him, and the ground trembled. Man oh man, this was one big – and loud, really loud – bird. Through his fear of it, Daniel absently wondered how, with the volume of that deafening quack, it avoided drawing the attention of every predator in the solar system. Why was this thing alive? For that matter, how could it possibly find enough bugs and grains to stay alive, if in fact that's what it even ate? Hopefully Tau'ri archaeologists weren't a fit diet. And, hey, how did it stay afloat, beings so big?  
  
Never mind; aquatic and alive it was, and... oh, oh, what was this? Feeling something against his leg, Daniel ever so slowly moved his head, careful of both dizziness and the chance he might alarm the thing standing over him. He flicked his gaze from Monster-Bird toward where, from the knees down, his legs were still in the river. Despite his fervent hope it was just the water lapping at his leg he'd felt, he figured that given his luck today that's not what he'd see... and sure enough, no, it wasn't.  
  
Oh! Right, I know you, he thought, vaguely aware there was something not entirely rational about the spurt of delight he felt at seeing what was touching his leg. The butt-ugly, flat yellow head was definitely familiar, as was the softer, more pleasant voice than that of the – the, uh, the mother-bird? Daniel snorted – hee, the mother-bird; like, mother-ship, get it? – and unfortunately the snort provoked a retch that tore his chest and throat wide open. He had no choice in the matter; his body moved of its own accord to curl around the insult, head swimming and his eyes tearing up. He waited, struggling to catch his breath, but thankfully the large bird at his side didn't react to the movement. It did quack again, though, and the harsh noise sent spikes through his water-filled ears. Mostly, it just perched there, seemingly indifferent to his suffering.  
  
In contrast, the smaller bird climbed out of the water to settle, with a fluff and ruffle of feathers, smack on top of his pelvis and upper right thigh. He shouted as its rough foot slid across the staff wound, but then as it hunkered down a heavy warmth immediately spread through his groin and over his hip and leg, penetrating ice cold skin and muscle. The duck ignored the shiver and jerk of Daniel's body as the thaw set nerves twanging painfully, and for his part he rode it out with clenched teeth, knowing he had to get warmed up somehow or die and maybe this was as good a way as any right now – especially given there was no other way. This was a good thing, he told himself. As long as the big mother-duck didn't decide to climb aboard his chest, he'd be all right.  
  
It didn't sit on him, no, but it did suddenly lean forward and peck at him. The impact was directly on the edge of his jacket collar, at his neck, and it hurt so much he shrieked, jerking his head back. He wasn't sure of much for a bit after that, swooning under the influence of heightened vertigo, nausea, and shortness of breath set up by the abrupt movement.  
  
When he came back to himself, it was to see the big duck wasn't where it had been. A series of soft quacks came from well over to the right, along with a loud and definitely matriarchal quack, and when he caught sight of it he was startled to see it wasn't alone, even though the smaller one was still sitting on him. "Hey," he whispered, his throat too sore to bother trying to speak loud enough for them to hear him. "Got the whole family here now, huh?" But they obviously did hear him, as the three little ones tucked up against the mother fluttered and jerked their heads back, while she simply cocked hers and calmly stared at him.  
  
He was still light-headed, and alarmed to realise the dizziness was worsening again instead of getting better. His limbs crackled with abnormal sensation, and he tried to take deep, slow breaths, thinking maybe his shallow breathing wasn't letting enough oxygen in and CO2 out. But his chest hurt like hell with deeper breaths, and if anything his head swam even more. To distract himself from his predicament, Daniel carefully turned to examine the one sitting on him. Yes. It was smaller than the mother, but still bigger than the three newcomers. The babies looked to be a bit larger than Earth-side adult mallards, while the friendly one he'd first met in the river was getting on to the size of... what? A small swan, without the long neck? Yeah. A little swan, he smiled. That was nice. No. No, it wasn't. How could he think there was anything nice about any of this? Must be losing his mind, or... something.  
  
He turned his attention to the big one. "You're sure no swan," he muttered to it, and it stretched its neck, turning its head to regard him with one eye. The one on him spoke in a series of what seemed to be interpreted as reassuring quacks, because the mother settled back down again, squatting contentedly. Wow, Daniel thought, a stir of excited interest poking through his increasing muzziness. Wow, they're definitely intelligent, definitely communicating... that was great. Yeah, really... great. He felt funny, all sort of floaty in a heavy, painful sort of way. Just, great.  
  
He was aware of Mom giving its offspring a light shove with its body, and even with his vision darkening around the edges and not having anywhere near a solid command of Duckese, neither verbal nor non-verbal, Daniel could see what she'd just told them to do.  
  
"No, no, that's all right," he croaked at them. "You're fine where you are. I'm fine too. No need." But they kept on coming, heightened interest sparking bright in three sets of red eyes as he spoke.  
  
As if to welcome them to the party, the friendly duck on his lap stood right up on him. He couldn't help but scream as sharp, scaly feet made a direct hit on his groin and then took a layer of congealed blood and tissue off the wound on his thigh. The pain didn't last long – he felt the haze deepen, knew he was about to pass out, and willingly gave way. Everything went gray, and then black.

 

* * *

  
  
The colonel's behaviour was more due to fear for Daniel than it was a rejection of Teal'c; Sam knew that. And she knew Teal'c understood that too, even if the knowledge wasn't helping much. Teal'c was probably so confused that he was at a loss as to what to do next – he'd done what to him seemed the right thing to do, which had turned out to be the wrong thing, and so, now what?  
  
She watched Colonel O'Neill stomp off down the slope and set out across the way they'd come, acutely aware of Teal'c standing in exactly the same pose the colonel had left him: stock-still, one foot planted behind him frozen in the act of stepping back, his staff held at the same cock-eyed angle it had been batted into by the colonel. Feeling guilty but doing it regardless, she turned away and wordlessly set out in exactly the opposite direction from Colonel O'Neill. Teal'c was just going to have to figure it out for himself, because even though she empathised with him, she really didn't have it in her to deal with anything right now other than the fight to retain her own composure.  
  
The colonel and Teal'c were wrong. They had to be. Daniel couldn't be dead. This was far too stupid a way to go. He's okay, he's okay, she chanted in time with her harsh breathing as she carefully picked her way amid the rocks along the rim of the canyon wall, continuing to scan the river below. Colonel O'Neill was way out of line. Daniel was a strong swimmer; he was by far the best of them in the water, and the colonel well knew that. Damn him – he knew that!  
  
If not for the fact she didn't want to risk choking herself on the sob stuck in her throat, she would have laughed over the role reversal – here she was, Captain Oh God He's Gone Sir, going this way, and there he was, Colonel It's Okay We'll Find Him, going... . Going nowhere, she realised, and felt a bit better at the pointed reminder to herself that he'd be back with them soon and they'd get on with the search – the rescue attempt – as a team. Just as it should be.  
  
She hadn't travelled more than ten yards when she heard Teal'c call out to the colonel, in anything but his most fearsome and powerful First Prime tone. Wrong again, Teal'c, she thought, but turned to look anyway. Sure enough, the only response Teal'c received was a backward, dismissive wave of an arm from the colonel's receding figure.  
  
Not entirely willingly, but compelled none the less by the stark sight of him standing alone at the edge of the chasm, Sam started making her way back to him. He saw her, but turned away to look down into the churning waters below, and then with a sudden, convulsive move hurled his staff weapon away from him. It clattered onto the ground not far from her and she took the short detour to retrieve it, feeling a complex mix of compassion and irritation with him poke through her anxiety. His behaviour bordered on self-indulgent, but she could certainly understand how he felt. And then she was standing right next to him, not quite sure what to say. Obeying the urge to scream, "Hey, get over yourself and let's go; Daniel might be drowning out there," probably wasn't the most sensitive option.  
  
So she didn't say anything for a few moments, holding the staff loosely in her hand as he acknowledged her presence with a quick glance and then went back to staring down into the canyon. Bitter regret was written on his face and in the slump of his shoulders, and she decided maybe it would help to assure him she didn't think it was his fault. She really didn't blame him, but even so, the words wouldn't come when she tried; all that came out of her mouth was a sad, strangled little noise.  
  
He looked at her, seeming to realise there was something she needed from him – and, oh, wasn't that an astonishing revelation about herself she'd just had – and gently removed the staff weapon from her hand. Inclining his head in a respectful nod, he said, "Let us carry on then, Captain Carter."  
  
Third time lucky, he'd got it right. Exactly right. The grim set of her mouth and determined stiffness of her spine, coping mechanisms well honed by years of military service, were no match for the relief she felt at not having to go on alone. A few of the tears held at bay by her training broke free and she angrily brushed them from her eyes, impatient with herself. Despite that there was nothing here – no predators from back near the 'gate; no Goa'uld or enemy Jaffa lurking behind the rocks – other than her own inhibitions that demanded such stiff upper lip treatment, she stood up straighter and refused to give in. Tears were misplaced. He wasn't dead. Wasn't, wasn't dead.  
  
With a last glance at the colonel's still retreating figure, they set off along the canyon rim. Sam took over what had been the colonel's task of repeatedly trying the comm, hoping to hear Daniel respond even though they all knew his radio was probably toast. She called his name at regular intervals, dutifully estimated their position for him, asked him to respond; and each answering silence threatened her grip on one more mental 'wasn't', one more chunk of her own resolve.  
  
She and Teal'c followed the course of the river below as it emerged from its sharp left turn and carried on in a much gentler arc, accompanied only by those fruitless hails, the sound of their feet crunching and sliding on the ground, and the occasional bird call. As the canyon and the river below began to widen, they found themselves steadily going downhill, steeper and steeper, and then suddenly clambering around rocks and scrubby bushes down a precipitous, long slope. Sam did her best to keep her eyes on the river and its banks, but the steep terrain wouldn't allow for safe passage that way and she had to tear her gaze away, feeling sick with regret and ever-heightening fear that the colonel might be right... that they might never find Daniel.  
  
Teal'c was all sober efficiency by her side, choosing their path carefully, helping her with an outstretched hand to navigate the more dangerous stretches of what was fast becoming a frighteningly steep drop. She was guiltily relieved when they were forced inland by large thickets of thorny, heavily leafed bushes that sprang up all along the steep pitch of the rim. They moved only as far as they absolutely had to from the river, and while still steep, even this bit inland the hill was less dangerous than it had been closer to the rim.  
  
"The height of the canyon continues to lessen. When it is safe to do so, I will make my way to the water's edge and attempt to backtrack," Teal'c commented, clearly understanding her concern about losing sight of the river.  
  
She merely nodded, not having the breath nor the will to respond aloud. It was a nice offer, but they both knew the attempt would be too risky. From what they'd seen before heading away from the rim, even though the river had widened considerably and wasn't so tumultuous its banks still weren't negotiable. Besides, there was no way, not yet at least, she could accept the image Teal'c's words brought to mind – Daniel was not lying broken, cast aside like a battered branch, on the rocks back there. No, he was up ahead somewhere, floating along on the surface, waiting for the current to carry him to safer ground.  
  
As the steep hill gave way to a series of alternating drops and flatter sections, they were forced a bit further inland by irregular stands of small trees and thick bushes that sprang up around them. They paused for a short rest and to get their bearings, Teal'c trotting off, telling her he'd quickly scout out the terrain just ahead. He wouldn't go far, he told her; please remain alert, Captain Carter, until his return, as the heavier foliage may provide concealment for indigenous wildlife.  
  
Yeah, I'll do that, she thought, bent over trying to catch her breath, and then straightened up and glanced back at the way they'd come. She was astounded to see just how distant the top of the hill was, and how much the ground had dropped. Across the way, she couldn't even see the other side of the canyon over the tops of the waist-high bushes, and realised the opposite bank must have dropped even further than this one. It occurred to her that if they were going to be travelling inland, no matter how slightly, they' needed a sightline on the opposite wall of the canyon to guide them. A stab of alarm hit her at the thought of losing sight of whether the river was continuing its left turn, or instead veering off to the right. Following the river equalled following Daniel, and if...  
  
She sucked in a deep breath. There wasn't anything they could do about it; if they couldn't see it, they couldn't see it. If the river was in fact swinging in the other direction, moving away from them, it just meant they'd have further to walk to get back to the edge. They'd do that; they'd find the water's edge and as Teal'c said, they'd backtrack. Failing that, a UAV could survey the sections they missed, although at this point the time involved in running back to the Stargate and arranging for that made a UAV a last resort. If they'd suspected that the peacefully meandering channel near the Stargate would so soon turn into this... but they hadn't.  
  
She took a good look at the hill she'd just come down, and it occurred to her that if the river bed had not dropped along with them, if it stayed at a constant elevation, the banks along this stretch might not be all that much higher than the ones back by the Stargate. She eyed the bushes keeping her from it with frustration. Maybe between the two of them she and Teal'c could somehow hack their way through, back to the canyon, to carry on along the water's edge? Impatient for Teal'c to return so she could discuss it with him, she checked her chrono and was dismayed to see that two hours had passed since Daniel had entered the water.  
  
That was... he couldn't... no. Stop that train of thought right there. The dread provoked by realising how much time had passed wouldn't be banished, though, sitting in the pit of her stomach like a cold stone. Cold. The water was bound to be very cold. They were in mountainous territory; it was probably frigid. Oh, God. Two hours.  
  
There was a burst of static and then Teal'c's voice came through her comm, telling her the terrain was much improved ahead and he was easily able to proceed. He gave her landmarks to lead her in his direction. She was about to protest, wanting him to come back and help her try getting through the bushes, but he was back on again in a flash and the animation in his voice had her moving forward even before she had completely processed his words. "Captain Carter," he blurted, sounding as if he was also on the move, "When you reach the third marked tree, bear right to two o'clock. I have sighted the river. I believe I see someone."  
  
She took off at a run, a prayer of "please, please, please" matching the rhythm of her boots hitting the rough ground. She'd gone only a short distance, though, when her comm activated once more. "Might just be me, Teal'c," the colonel's voice emerged. "Is that you hulking around in the trees, seven o'clock to me? Please tell me that's you," he continued, and Sam slowed to a safer pace, because it wasn't Daniel Teal'c had seen after all.  
  
Teal'c must have signalled somehow, because Colonel O'Neill promptly let out a gusting sigh into the radio, saying, "Good. I was hoping it wasn't that the local man-eaters were wearing green this year. It's so passe."  
  
Yes, and you've been alone out there, Sam thought, realising just how angry she was with the colonel. He'd gone off on his own, farther away from the rest of them than was sane given they'd already encountered large animals with self-defensive hair-triggers set finer than the one on her weapon. Irresponsible. What if he'd been attacked, like Daniel had back at the 'gate? But even as she railed at him in her mind, she knew his placing himself at risk was only a small part of why she was angry. What had driven him into the landscape alone was that he'd given up on Daniel. It didn't matter that it had affected him enough he'd had to isolate himself to deal with it; that wasn't any sort of compensation for turning his back too soon.  
  
Too soon was until they found a dead body, and not an instant before. But that thought was immediately followed up by an involuntary oh, just who are you trying to kid? She put the resulting stab of guilt to good use, giving vent to her emotions by recklessly clearing the way in front of her as she headed for Teal'c's third tree. A vicious swat at a low hanging branch and a series of unbalanced kicks at the ever-present stones at her feet provided only marginal relief, and she knew she was being stupidly careless, but she did it anyway. Take that. And that. She stomped around toward two o'clock of the tag Teal'c had left on the tree, raised her gaze from her victims on the ground to look for him... and stopped dead. Oh my.  
  
If it weren't for the fact this was the river that had swallowed her friend, Sam would've wanted to be the first to voice just how beautiful the vista in front of her was. She found herself standing at the edge of a line of small trees that curved off to her left, extending far into the distance. It formed a living, green colonnade, separating a rough and tumble of bushes and trees inland from a broad grassy slope alive with pink, yellow, and white blooms. In extreme contrast to what they'd been searching to this point, here the riverbank slanted down about thirty feet to a point where it suddenly gave way to a short but very steep dirt incline littered with mossy rocks and assorted plant debris. The river had gentled, widening to easily three times its previous breadth. It flowed calmly past her, following an elegant arc to the left, the surface of the water glittering in the afternoon sun.  
  
No. It was a death trap, she reminded herself, determined to hate it even as its serene beauty took her breath away. 

 

* * *

  
  
Jack saw Carter emerge from the trees, and let out a satisfied puff of air. Good, that was good; they were all three accounted for, each in one safe piece. He noticed Carter catch sight of Teal'c and then himself, and as she started forward toward Teal'c Jack turned back to the river and raised his optical scope to finish the sweep Teal'c had interrupted. But there was nothing. Not so much as clod of dirt looked disturbed on the opposite bank, for as far as he could see with the powerful little scope. Daniel was most likely either further downstream or still in the melee behind them, trapped on the rocks, or... damn it, or he was at the bottom of the river. Maybe even right here, right in front of their faces. If that was the case, they'd never know it.  
  
The calm of the river was encouraging, especially seeing as they had such good access to the water now... but really, that didn't mean much in terms of the possible outcome of their search. Nevertheless, Jack knew he couldn't call it quits and go back to the Stargate, even though this was too large a task for three tired people. They weren't doing themselves nor Daniel much good right now, but it was still too soon; he'd send Teal'c and Carter back for an S/R team if they still hadn't found anything in another hour or so. Damned if he was going to walk away again just yet. Done that, puked on the T-shirt out of utter disgust with himself, and wasn't going to do it again. He was going to stay here and search until Hammond called it off right to his face, and even then Hammond would have to send a battalion to haul his ass back. Barring that, this planet was home to him until Daniel was found. End of story.  
  
He turned and watched as Teal'c and Carter, a few hundred feet off to his right, made their way down the last bit of the grassy bank. They came to a halt at the top of the drop-off, obviously considering where they ought to attempt the descent. He wasn't about to direct them to the place he'd slid down himself; he'd chosen poorly and his sore ankle was still complaining loudly. Not to mention he still had pebbles and dirt stuck down the back of his pants.  
  
Seeing them carefully choose a route and start down, not as foolhardy as him, Jack set off again, following the river as it curled in an ever-present arc to the left. He moved at a light jog, stepping carefully, mindful of his ankle, not wanting to damage it to the point he was more of a hindrance than a help in the search for Daniel.  
  
Jack eyed with disfavour the upcoming clutter of debris he could see washed up onto the bank some who damn cares how many hundred feet ahead of him. He wasn't looking forward to navigating that spot – might have to climb back up onto the bank and go around it. The river took a weird little hook just this side of the sizeable pile of what looked to be silt and broken branches, and then, as far as he could tell given the distance and the obscured view, seemed to do a duck and weave back to the left. It wasn't possible to tell what lay beyond that point.  
  
Crunching noises and the creak-rustle of gear and heavy fabric carried over to him above the soft swish of the river – Teal'c and Carter were running to catch up. He slowed his pace to a walk to make it easier for them. His ankle thanked him for the short respite; he'd put in quite the run overland, both to work off the emotion and in the hope that the river continued with the left turn that had, in fact, allowed him to cut off the angle and beat – not by much, mind you – Teal'c and Carter here. He heard them slow to a jog behind him and he stopped, turning to watch them approach. They looked exhausted. Maybe this was a good place to take a break, to let them catch their breath and rest sore muscles, considering the pile of debris to be tackled up ahead.  
  
Holy– ! Jack dove for the ground as Teal'c's staff and Carter's MP5 abruptly snapped up to point pretty much straight at him. He stared at them as they jerked to a halt, weapons raised to the ready position, Carter's warning of "Sir, behind you," coming a split second after he'd already jarred his teeth in a face-plant worthy of a gold medal. He stayed down and twisted around onto his back, yanking his own weapon into position, scanning the area that'd been at his back. Finding... nothing. Carter? There wasn't a damned thing there that he could see. But she was at the ready, moving cautiously off to the side, stepping slowly to her right, and Teal'c was soundlessly going left, targeting down the length of his staff.  
  
Okay, so there must be something there he couldn't see from down on the ground. Jack swivelled himself around and onto his knees, sighting down his barrel toward the big nothing that Teal'c and Carter's weapons were stalking. He carefully rose to his feet and took his place at the centre of the defensive semi-circle they'd set up, whispering, "Where? What am I looking for?"  
  
His heart pounded with hope as Carter quietly answered, "Movement, sir. In the debris ahead." But that hope was dashed as she continued, "Multiple unknowns. I don't see them right now, but they were there."  
  
"They remain," Teal'c reported. "They are concealed within the jetsam."  
  
Jetsam? Teal'c had evidently made good progress past the letter G. That had been a hard one for everyone else to suffer through – especially, there were a hell of a lot of G-o words in the dictionary, "gormless" having been a favourite for days. And the smell of Gorgonzola had permeated the base for over a week.  
  
Wait; there? Yes, yes he could see it now, a flash of misplaced colour against the mass of moss-covered dead branches. He jerked his weapon to the right as out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a second target, there one second and gone the next. Probably some sort of wildlife, foraging amid the... okay, yeah, amid the jetsam.  
  
Damn. His fingers tightened and stomach clenched as his mind did a not-so-instant but still vivid replay. Foul-tempered, smelly, hairy things with sharp yellowed teeth and claws, and a distinct 'you leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, unless of course I happen to see you first in which case I am going to eat you' bad attitude... one of them springing, in a ponderous sort of way, from behind the bushes Daniel was passing as he walked alongside the bank of the river. Memory influencing his expectations, Jack very nearly involuntarily let go a spray of bullets as something definitely larger than his big toe suddenly popped up from within the debris pile. He pulled back at the last second, realising it was smaller than a teeth and claws breadbox, and obviously lighter, bobbing and hopping around rather than ominously lumbering.  
  
His MP5 came down just about at the same time Carter's did. "Oh, for... . They're just birds," she exclaimed, a hint of self-disgust tingeing the relief in her voice. Jack pulled out his scope and she walked over to him as he peered through it. "The general shape looks familiar," she commented. "Are they some sort of waterfowl, sir?"  
  
Yeah, some sort of waterfowl. A duck? Not a very pretty duck, if that's what it was. Jack had trouble keeping track of his subject with the scope as the bird waddled and hopped along the branches, pecking at the moss. But okay, yeah; ducks. He swung the scope and yes, and that one over there, too, resembled some kind of really ugly duck. Size was difficult to estimate through the scope, so he lowered it, eyeballing the two birds from a distance. A bit large, but definitely the right shape to be ducks, so... so screw it. No threat there, and time was passing too quickly as it was.  
  
Teal'c finally slowly lowered his staff as Jack nodded at him, and they set out down the shore, keeping an eye out for any other signs of life. They monitored the shoreline, the upper bank, and the water, and the opposite side of the river. Other than the occasional clump of leaves or branch floating in the water, swirling toward landfall near the debris pile SG1 was heading for, there was nothing. Nothing except the increasing height of the steep drop of riverbank next to them, that was. Jack's concern grew as they walked; the dirt bank looked to have gained at least a couple of feet in height in just the short distance they'd travelled so far.  
  
As they got closer to the ducks, it became clear from the birds' behaviour they knew the team was there. Mottled yellow heads rose every few moments to stare at the team, then went back to their industrious poking and pecking.  
  
It occurred to Jack to wonder about their behaviour a scant second before Carter did it aloud. "They don't seem very worried about us. Either they're very placid by nature, or... I don't know. It's almost as if they're familiar with people."  
  
"We have seen no evidence that human life exists here. Perhaps their eyesight is poor enough that from this distance we resemble already familiar wildlife," Teal'c suggested.  
  
On offworld missions, it wasn't unusual to run across wildlife that wasn't afraid of them. Lack of familiarity often carried with it a lack of reason to fear. They all knew that, but Jack guessed that wasn't what either or them was thinking about. "Doubt very much Daniel would have had time to befriend the local bird population, guys, even if he has made it out of the water by now."  
  
Carter remained glumly silent, and Teal'c simply nodded in acknowledgement of the private fantasy. "It's a nice thought, though," Jack added, wishing that fact and fantasy were, in this case, one and the same thing.  
  
Close enough now to warrant finding a way around the mess, Jack waved Teal'c and Carter to the left. They found as good a spot as they could, and starting climbing the sharp incline, heading back up to the grass bank. As he struggled, sliding on clumps of slippery moss and grabbing at dirt handholds that more often than not crumbled in his fingers, Jack looked over his shoulder to discover they had a captivated audience of innumerable sets of eyes. The ducks weren't alone, being accompanied by a large number of much smaller, shyer, and more lively birds they hadn't been able to see from a distance. Obviously not aquatic like the ducks, these things flitted amongst the jetsam on red-streaked wings.  
  
Jack clambered up onto the bank, his ankle twanging miserably, and reached out to help Carter up the last few feet. As he waited for Teal'c to scramble up behind her, he watched the birds through the scope as they actively darted around the oversized, ugly as sin ducks. Cunning little opportunists, he smiled with grim approval, as he saw the small sharp beaks dipping into holes the larger, broad bills of the ducks had opened up in the rotted wood.  
  
In the next moment, as Teal'c leaped up onto the bank and strode forward at a fast clip, the ducks froze, watching the team alertly. The little birds responded by taking off in a cloud of frenzied, red-streaked activity, their trust pushed too far. Teal'c stopped, watching the birds fly off and then settle into treetops some hundred feet away. "Should Daniel Jackson be anywhere nearby," he began, and Jack interrupted him brutally.  
  
"Ach. That's enough. If you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything at all." The flock's response to Teal'c's movement brought the exact same thought to his mind, but it was one of those things there wasn't any point in saying out loud. No one needed to hear it.  
  
Besides, Daniel had likely been washed so far ahead of them by now that probably no one and nothing, never mind these birds, could detect his presence with the unaided eye or ear from here, even from a vantage point way up in those trees. But oh, to be up in those trees, to be able to see through his scope for miles along the river. Jack wished he would sprout wings and fly, but he couldn't, and as Teal'c grunted in what sounded like frustration and set out again, Jack fell into place on Carter's six. He was only too happy to mash the gaily coloured blooms under his feet into the grass as he went. This planet sucked eggs.  
  
The ducks, sitting calmly on the pile of silt and assorted crap below, eyed them with interest as he, Teal'c and Carter trudged past along the upper bank. They looked even uglier this close up than they had through the scope, their beady red eyes, rough beaks, and pukey colour the more pleasant of their attributes. Each scaly webbed foot had three little talon-like protrusions jutting out of the heel area, and there was something unpleasantly slick and bulbar about the undersides of their bodies. Although being dull rather than shiny, and larger, the shape of their undercarriage vaguely reminded Jack of an unidentifiable inside-turned-outside that'd popped out of some roadkill Teal'c had nailed during one of their recent driving lessons.  
  
After a few moments of mutual inspection, several abrupt quacks sounding similar to those of Earthside ducks dismissed the team, and the birds turned their attention back to foraging. Yeah, well, you're nothing special to look at either, Jack resentfully thought at them, reconsidering their tolerance of humans. The big hairies were defensively hostile, while these ducks were watchful but altogether pretty much indifferent to them; Jack imagined he could hear Daniel's voice excitedly pointing out that the difference in the two species' behaviour toward SG1 meant the possibility of a humanoid population here couldn't be ignored. And yeah, he could go with that. Malp and UAV findings, on the other hand – useless as tits on bulls.  
  
The debris on the lower bank waxed and waned in amount all along the sweeping bend they followed, and now Jack could see it carried on into the left-handed duck and weave of the river he'd earlier viewed through the scope. He couldn't see very far ahead along the bank below from his position, but it was enough to tell that, just past that screwy indent they were making their way toward, the river appeared to resume its gradual left turn. The surface was quickly falling ever further away, though, as the height of the banks on both sides of the river increased. He cursed quietly to himself as he realised that he'd soon need to make the best of two bad choices: stumble along over debris and whatever unknown conditions were to come down there, or stay up here and risk not being able to safely get back down to the water's edge again.  
  
He set out again at as fast a clip as his ankle and the need to carefully keep an eye on the clutter of debris below allowed for, Carter at his side, Teal'c on their six this time. He dearly wanted to go back up to the tree line and head farther left, to save time by cutting off the angle between here and where the river settled back into its regular curve, but he knew that they needed eyes on the river at all times. Those big smelly things definitely wandered the wooded areas, so if he did choose to cut off the angle, two of them would have to go, leaving one alone here by the river. Given his very recent experience while off sulking in the woods, he was loathe to leave anyone alone, no matter where, for any length of time.  
  
They'd just have to carry on the way they were and hope for the best. This was a good illustration of the reasoning behind four man teams, he thought – that is, until you lost your fourth, dammit. God damn it, Daniel.  
  
The river was expansively wide now, and realising it was past time, Jack slowed his pace considerably and pulled out the scope to examine the opposite bank. Peering through the thing, he tried to monitor the ground in front of him as he walked, but basically relied on his sense of Carter's movements to let him know if he was about to stumble into anything. That didn't work very well; at the third complaint from his ankle as it twisted on yet another unnoticed stone in the grass, he decided to view the bank in chunks. Alternately slowly walking some ten yards with his eyeball pasted to the scope before pulling it away and picking up the pace again, he carefully scanned for any sign that something other than a bird might have passed that way.  
  
He'd just slowed and raised the scope again when it unexpectedly leapt out of control and poked him right in his open eye – right in the goddamn freaking eyeball, Captain, damn it! – as Carter abruptly stopped and grabbed his jacket sleeve. Okay, not funny. It hurt like hell. But it was even less fun a few seconds later when, still bent forward desperately cupping his pulsing eye, he realised he was missing something really important. Carter let out a panicked-sounding, "Oh God, oh God," released his sleeve, and the back of her pack neatly swacked him in the head as she abruptly took off at what sounded like a disorganised run. Tears streaming from his eye, Jack straightened up and got his bearings – there, at eleven o'clock: Carter and Teal'c were both running at a shallow angle toward the edge of the bank about a hundred feet ahead.  
  
He'd only just got himself moving, one hand still clamped over his exploding eyeball, when he saw Carter and Teal'c reach the edge of the bank and raise their weapons. They both yelled something but their voices were drowned out by the full-auto volley Carter instantly let off from the MP-5. Her aim was into the sky instead of down toward the shoreline, and she didn't quite cut it off in time to avoid firing into the cloud of red-winged birds that rose into view from below, flapping in all directions in a frenzied dash that simply led right back to the ground for the ones unlucky enough to have flown into the path of a bullet.  
  
Then Jack was there. Seeing what they saw. Aw crap.

 

* * *

  
  
Teal'c's fingers tightened on his staff weapon. Mek'sha. Pa mek'sha. Oh no.  
  
Panicked by Captain Carter's gunfire, droves of the small birds winged upward and within seconds had cleared the site, but still he could not bring himself to fire the staff. Anger warred with despicable fear, setting up a tremble in his hands that further fueled his impatience with himself. Completely unacceptable. And yet, even so, he did nothing but stand and quake impotently as he stared at the scene below. What was wrong with him?  
  
O'Neill arrived at his side and let out first a gasp, and then a whoop of rage that Teal'c longed to share in. But he was struck voiceless by shame. Daniel Jackson was dead, and Teal'c not only had killed him but was betraying him further, even now after death. Whether it be that Daniel had actually drowned in the rough waters or survived the river but had succumbed under the attack Teal'c now witnessed was irrelevant – it was at Teal'c's hand that his friend's fate had been sealed. And now, he did nothing to abate further violation. Kel'pahk. He was kel'pahk. Beyond contempt.  
  
Captain Carter and O'Neill fired their weapons at the ground well in front of the carnage below, while the best Teal'c could do was grip the hated staff and wish he'd never come upon this scene. At the repeat of the noise from the MP5s, several of the smaller of the birds once again startled on their perch atop Daniel Jackson, as they'd done when Captain Carter had first fired. And as before, their agitated movement caused the body to stir in macabre fashion, limbs twitching as the head lolled from midline to one side and back again. The creatures did not leave, though, even as O'Neill waved his arms, screamed at them, and fired once again, this time toward the very large bird sitting on the ground right next to their friend's body.  
  
"Shit!" O'Neill shouted at the end of his burst, the weapon cutting off abruptly even though ineffective – the huge bird stood and pulled back slightly, but did not flee. "Shit," he yelled again, and set off to take the nearby drop at a limping run, arms flapping in wide waves above his head. Captain Carter stood frozen in place for a moment then joined O'Neill, calling out Daniel Jackson's name, running to catch up, her pack and weapon slapping against her body.  
  
Teal'c watched them scramble over the edge of the bank, torn between want and inability. He wanted desperately to do as they were, to take action against this desecration, but for some unfathomable reason he was frozen, utterly immobile, at the idea of using his staff to help clear the scavengers from his friend's body. Equally as reprehensible was his reluctance to go down there and accomplish the task in person. He had to force his legs into motion, his heart twisting in the grip of emotions he'd only recently come to realise were acceptable to acknowledge: sorrow; regret; grief. And fear as well, yes. Through his association with the Tau'ri, he'd come to understand that weakness – that which had just made him kel'pahk – did not, would never, reside in what he felt, but rather in what he did. It was not fear nor shame that was a crime, but ineffectiveness.  
  
Captain Carter paused just before sliding all the way over the edge of the drop-off, angled her weapon skyward, and let off another short burst. On the tail of the weapons-fire Teal'c heard O'Neill yell, "Get off! Leave him alone, you!"  
  
A sudden whisper of doubt quickened Teal'c's steps, and for the first time he focused his attention on what he'd tried not to look very hard at to this point. He stared, sharp and intent this time, O'Neill's words raising the possibility of an alternate interpretation of the scene below – and yes, there it was, movement not entirely due to the actions of the birds nesting and preying upon Daniel Jackson's body. A flex of a booted ankle, slight movement of a hand. A barely noticeable twist and turn of the head, as if in response to O'Neill and Carter's shouts as they slid down the embankment.  
  
Daniel Jackson yet lived. He was alive. Teal'c's heart lifted with relief, only to immediately plummet in horror. Daniel Jackson was... was... mek'sha! Daniel Jackson was being fed upon, alive. Strangled by revulsion, Teal'c spat out a gob of saliva that wouldn't go down and snapped the staff weapon up into firing position. Shame and fear had burned at him, had stilled his hand, but now, with this new knowledge, an urgent need burned even more brightly. This torture must stop. He must come to the aid of his friend. One, two, three, four blasts in quick succession struck the pile of branches and silt near to the largest of the creatures. Teal'c watched with angry satisfaction as the mass of tinder abruptly erupted into a ball of flame and the vile scavengers finally got the message – the birds panicked, fire being a threat they were more fearful of than noise and running people.  
  
The large bird beside the spreading low wall of flame spurted forward, across Daniel's body, and made for the river. It was followed by the others, which leapt off their perches in a flurry of squawks and inefficiently flapping wings. Daniel Jackson's body jerked violently, and even from this distance Teal'c was certain he heard a hoarse cry as his friend was mounted and then, in the next instant, used as a launch pad by the large bird.  
  
Teal'c bounded the few steps to the edge of the embankment and took it without pause, skidding down the first few feet on his mik'ta before digging his heels into the dirt. He managed the rest of the drop in running leaps and hit the riverbank surface just as O'Neill and Captain Carter arrived at Daniel Jackson's side. Recollection of the sharp spurs on the heels of the birds, and of the feeding behaviour he'd seen, hurried Teal'c's pace further and he got there even before Captain Carter was able to remove her pack. He crouched behind her and did it for her, ripping it from her back and clawing it open. He pulled out everything his hands came into contact with, knowing as he did so that while his urgency was heartfelt, his motives were not quite so clear-cut. For Daniel Jackson was agitated, weakly thrashing, protesting something with hoarse, almost indecipherable cries, and Teal'c couldn't face that just yet. While accessing the medical supplies was a help, he knew it was also an act of avoidance.  
  
He was avoiding actually looking at Daniel Jackson, avoiding the moment in which he would see the damage he had wrought. Afraid of the moment their eyes would meet, and he would see his guilt in the face and pain of his friend. Yes, truly, he was kel'pahk.  
  
Captain Carter turned, a pressure dressing from her vest in her hand, and unnecessarily advised, "Teal'c, we'll need the full kit." It was already in hand, so he simply reached around and placed it in her lap, backing off give her ample room, waiting to learn how he could best assist her. Across from him, O'Neill's head was bent low over their friend's, O'Neill whispering so quietly that Teal'c could not discern the words. Whatever they were, they must have been the right ones as Daniel Jackson soon quieted, his limbs no longer moving in panicky jerks. Soft exhalations that Teal'c could not make out answered O'Neill. He could, however, make out only too well the groans of pain which accompanied the quiet conversation.  
  
Daniel Jackson's face was turned away from where Teal'c crouched, O'Neill's hand cushioning his face from the rough ground. The other hand was clamped firmly down onto Daniel's chest, underneath the upper edge of his open jacket. Teal'c's gaze was drawn to that spot, to the trails of fresh blood trickling across the exposed portions of Daniel's t-shirt and skin. At the sight, Teal'c very nearly stood up and walked away. The realisation that he was so selfish as to want to retreat from this to nurse his shame in isolation was intolerable, and it was only with great effort that he rejected the urge to strike out at whatever was within reach. Instead, he forced himself to reach into his own vest pouch for an emergency pressure dressing and move to Daniel Jackson's side.  
  
The bird's weight and sharp spur had done this as it fled from the fire Teal'c had lit. How many other such wounds were there, how many other pieces of flesh had been ripped from Daniel Jackson's body by uncaring feet and questing beaks? Taking care to keep his eyes fastened only upon what he was doing, Teal'c lifted the upper edge of fabric and slid the dressing into place overtop of O'Neill's hand. Muttering an almost inaudible thanks, O'Neill withdrew his hand and Teal'c pulled the jacket and T-shirt underneath down further to ensure he placed the dressing in the right spot. He clamped down on his anger as the wound was fully revealed: a jagged tear of skin and muscle, just below the clavicle. This was a parting gift from the large creature which had used Daniel Jackson as what the Tau'ri referred to as a short runway. And he, Teal'c, was to blame.  
  
He'd barely positioned the dressing when Captain Carter patted his shoulder, asking him, "Can you help me take care of this leg, Teal'c? It's badly contaminated."  
  
O'Neill's hand immediately returned to nudge his own out of the way, and so Teal'c shuffled over to sit beside Captain Carter, next to the injured leg. He felt a flush of relief as she gently pulled away enough wet and torn, filthy fabric to reveal that the staff wound was on the outer edge of the thigh, and while undoubtedly painful did not penetrate very deeply into the muscle. But then what she had actually just said sank in, and he chastised himself; he was gormless, as well as kel'pahk. Dirt, small pebbles, and a number of other unidentifiable bits of danger could readily be seen embedded in the raw flesh. There was little comfort in the wound being a shallow one while the threat of potentially lethal infection hovered over the victim.  
  
This was not something he was very experienced in; injuries on Goa'uld battlefields were rarely tended to, as Jaffa were considered by the Goa'uld an expendable sub-species not worthy of medical attention. But Teal'c had been through a number of the "first aid" educational sessions O'Neill had designated as mandatory, and, while nervous about his ability to actually be of help, he gamely sorted through the medical kit for what he thought was needed. He unwrapped the supplies for Captain Carter, ignoring the few quiet words passing between O'Neill and Daniel Jackson and then the noise of O'Neill moving. But a moment later there was a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Carter, you'll need to deal with that on your own," O'Neill ordered. "Teal'c and I have something else to do right now."  
  
The hand tugged on him, and Teal'c rose in response. He was uncertain of what he was to be asked to do, but all too willing to bow to O'Neill's command and leave this task to the person best able to provide what help Daniel Jackson needed. That certainly was not him. So he followed O'Neill past the now barely burning debris pile, the fire bad-naturedly succumbing to the dampness of the fuel. Black smoke and bits of ash stained the air, and all too aware of this being yet another possible error, Teal'c was thankful for the direction of the light wind that drove the soot away from Daniel Jackson.  
  
O'Neill trotted over to the embankment, limping slightly, disconnecting the earpiece from his comm unit as he went, and Teal'c immediately understood what it was they had to do. He hurried to mount the hill first, turning at the top to help O'Neill up the last bit. "So," O'Neill huffed out when they were both standing on the grass again, "How far around do you figure we came?" He took his comm unit of his vest pocket and tuned it.  
  
Following suit with his own radio, Teal'c envisioned their run along the canyon rim, plotting both the time they'd taken and the continuous left-hand curve of the river onto a mental graph. From the Stargate, to here... "Possibly as much as one hundred twenty degrees," Teal'c concluded aloud. "Still, we may have lost a significant amount of distance on the Stargate, O'Neill," he cautioned, not able to decide if the amount of ground they'd covered on their run had taken them closer in or further out around the circle.  
  
"Yeah. I know. As the crow flies..." O'Neill began, and then interrupted himself with an unnecessary clarification, "Earth expression, Teal'c. It means, going in a straight line."  
  
"I am aware of its meaning," Teal'c snapped, not in a mood to be treated as if he still knew nothing of the world he was working so hard to adapt to. He was close to what Daniel Jackson, when characterising the expression on Colonel Maybourne's face upon being foiled in his attempt to imprison the Tollen, had referred to as "the boiling point". He'd thought then it was an apt descriptor, and it certainly well fit Teal'c's internal battle right now.  
  
O'Neill stared at him in evident speculation for a moment, and Teal'c had to tamp down the urge to take the look as a challenge and answer it with the aggression instilled by his Jaffa training. He busied himself with the comm unit and turned his back on O'Neill, walking along the bank to place the appropriate amount of distance between them. He stopped when he thought it was adequate for the calculation O'Neill had to make, and watched the tiny display on his comm as he pointed it inland and waved it in a wide arc. There; the signal strength increased the most with the unit aimed at about a thirty degree angle to the right from the river bank.  
  
His attention was drawn from his task momentarily when a hoarse cry of distress carried to him from below, and it was with his jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth hurt that Teal'c bent and dug the necessary markings into the grass at his feet. O'Neill came over, his steps carefully and consistently measured, a piece of paper and a writing implement in his hand. Teal'c watched as the rough calculation was performed, aware of the general principle behind the triangulation but unable to follow the mathematics. He understood perfectly, however, the grim smile and the gleam in O'Neill's eye as the final result was arrived at: should the terrain allow for direct travel, the Stargate was relatively nearby.  
  
"Lady Luck, don't fail us now," O'Neill murmured, casting a glance toward the late afternoon sun and then turning to Teal'c. "If this is right, we're in good shape for daylight. I want you and Carter to go. Barring any big detours, you should make it there in less than a couple of hours."  
  
Teal'c glanced down at O'Neill's ankle, agreeing with at least that one aspect of the decision. O'Neill would not make good time with his injury, and if the terrain proved to be rough that would slow him further. The rest, though... . That anyone be left alone with their injured team-mate was unacceptable. He spurted forward, casting a quick, "I will go now, O'Neill," over his shoulder.  
  
"Teal'c!" The frustrated call came immediately, and when Teal'c carried on it was followed by another, this one obviously borne of mounting anger. "Teal'c! No! Don't make me come after you, dammit..."  
  
There were unmistakable sounds of inefficient pursuit, and he thought momentarily about just ignoring it, but he couldn't. Teal'c knew he'd made too many miscalculations this day as it was; he could not risk this being another. If, in his anger, O'Neill carried on trying to follow for a significant distance before giving up, that would leave Captain Carter alone with Daniel Jackson for too long a time for comfort. Reluctantly, he reversed direction.  
  
O'Neill smacked him solidly on the arm the moment he was within reach. "What the hell are you thinking?"  
  
"I am thinking, O'Neill," Teal'c stood up straight and mustered what dignity he had left, resting his staff across his chest in the formal position of respect to a master as he made the only constructive offer of recompense possible right now, "that it is best for Captain Carter to remain with you and Daniel Jackson. I can best serve you, and mitigate the harm I have caused, by making haste to the Stargate."  
  
O'Neill snorted. "Oh, please. Not more theatrics."  
  
Theatrics? Ah, likely related to the informal more negative use of dramatic, from the Ds. Was that what his best efforts to atone were to O'Neill? Merely contrived, staged displays of misplaced hubris? If the best he had to offer was felt an improper response to the situation, then perhaps there was no real place for him amongst these people save one of shared hatred for the Goa'uld. Teal'c stared at the landscape over O'Neill's shoulder. That would have to do; surely he'd be no more alone and out of step here than he had been amongst his legions of fellow Jaffa.  
  
But then O'Neill placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Look, you're not in Apophis's court any more; you don't need to do that." His voice was soft and full of understanding as he added, "What happened to Daniel was an accident, Teal'c. No one expects or wants retribution... no one but you, anyway. So just... just don't. Okay? Don't."  
  
They stood in silence for a few seconds, until another faint cry from below was heard and sent them both into action. O'Neill thrust the piece of paper he'd been using into Teal'c's hand and moved to return to the river. Teal'c glanced at the paper and shoved it into his pant's pocket, turning to eye the copse of trees that stood in the path the triangulation had designated. Too extensive to detour around, he decided immediately. They would go through it.  
  
He heard evidence of O'Neill's scrambled progress down the drop, the sound of sliding rock and dirt being accompanied by assorted grunts and muttered complaints. Then he heard voices as Captain Carter received her orders. He waited impatiently for her, his eyes set on the unseen prize several hours distant past the trees. His legs itched to run, his body burning to busy itself with attaining this new goal, the inaction of waiting almost too punishing to bear.  
  
The moment he heard Captain Carter achieve the top of the bank, he was gone. 

 

* * *

  
  
"Sure they're okay?" Daniel asked him for what felt like the twenty-billionth time in the last millisecond. Jack sighed, not bothering with another reassurance just yet as he struggled to wrap Daniel's thigh without hurting him too badly – or, at least, without hurting him too badly yet again.  
  
The staff wound wasn't too deep, as far as staff wounds go, but it was filthy and the damage had been exacerbated by something. By something, yeah, Jack fumed, sparing a glance toward the birds that bobbed on the water beyond the river's edge. No forensics necessary here; the gouges in the raw flesh of Daniel's thigh were unmistakably the result of those foot-clawy-things. Nice aim, guys, he thought at them. Come a little closer, why don't you, and we can compare talents.  
  
"Jack?" Daniel was wheezing slightly and his voice was gravelly. Jack couldn't miss the wince that passed across his face with every word he uttered.  
  
"Yes, they're just fine," he tiredly reassured him again, wondering with a tinge of bad temper what the apparent short term memory gap was all about. Grumpy. He was getting mightily grumpy in the aftermath, now that he knew Daniel was still alive and his twisted, freakingly painful ankle had been worthwhile. "Don't talk any more. Didn't you hear me tell you the last time? They're fine."  
  
There was a pause, then a gasp as Jack jostled Daniel's leg just that bit too much as he passed the gauze wrap underneath one last time. And then, "Why?"  
  
Argh. Jack finally finished up by taping the end of the gauze in place, and snarked, "Because I didn't kill them, Daniel." Not yet, anyway, he silently added to himself.  
  
The facetious response evidently was lost on Daniel, who didn't exactly seem to be firing on all cylinders. All it did was provoke a spate of restless concern as Daniel first tried to correct him and then seemed to get confused as to just what Jack had actually said. "No, no, not that. I meant why should... I meant – oh, wait, kill them? Jack, Jack, no..."  
  
Jack plucked the grasping hand from his pantleg and tucked it into his own where it couldn't get into any trouble. "Yeah, okay, I know what you meant," he interrupted. "You shouldn't talk any more because you should rest your throat. And no, we didn't kill any of them, Daniel."  
  
"Yes, you already said that," Daniel answered, eyebrows raised, looking directly at him with a steady gaze now that Jack had let up on the painful stuff.  
  
Jack was surprised to see just how alert he seemed after all. It had been hard to tell, what with the closed eyes, scrunched face, and head-tossing that had gone on while Jack had tried to do Carter proud with that leg. Alert apparently wasn't equating with coherent, though, plus there was that apparent memory problem...  
  
"No I didn't," he tested, his evil side taking over the conversation – such as it was – for a moment.  
  
A look of faint confusion passed across Daniel's face, but only for a scant second before being replaced by one of long-suffering tolerance. "Part one, redux: They're fine; you didn't kill any of them," Daniel clarified with careful, evenly spaced words. "Part two, new: I should shut-up to rest my voice," he added, as if speaking to someone slow of wit.  
  
"So if you heard me the first quatrillion times, then why do you keep asking?" Jack burst out, thinking that even if Daniel's cylinders were in fact firing, that didn't mean the engine block wasn't cracked – it certainly felt like Jack's own motor was misbehaving. After all, sometimes dealing with Daniel could cause even the most highly tuned machine to splutter and die an early death.  
  
"It was only about three times... okay, maybe four. Because I'm not sure if I should believe you." Daniel tried to raise himself up onto his forearms but his head and shoulders barely cleared the ground before he let out a hiss and dropped back to lie flat. "I want to believe you," he ground out in between gasps and groans provoked by the movement. "But I heard the guns and the staff, and all of a sudden they're gone and there's a fire..."  
  
"All the better to roast them on," Jack irritably answered, understanding Daniel's problem but not exactly overwhelmed by a sense of mutual trust. Mind you, Daniel wasn't stupid and trust developed partly as a function of familiarity... so okay, yeah, given that Daniel was getting to know them pretty well and that his memory of their arrival was pretty much an alarming, noisy, and confusing blur, he could appreciate how Daniel might doubt that he and Teal'c had exercised what Daniel considered due restraint.  
  
It was what he'd actually intended, after all. He'd wanted nothing more than to get close enough to ensure he wouldn't accidentally hit Daniel, and blow those roosting birds into tomorrow. Of course, he'd thought they were dining on a Daniel smorgasbord at the time... .  
  
Jack once again looked at the evidence of their activities while aboard the Daniel meal-time express, and despite the bruises being part and parcel of that – the one on Daniel's neck looked particularly sore –he couldn't help but smile in wry amusement, especially at the sight of his boots. He reached toward the tortured side lacing of Daniel's vest with his free hand, which reminded him he still had hold of Daniel's hand. He let go. "Sorry," he muttered, but as Daniel's hand wandered toward the dressing on his leg that Jack had put so much effort into he immediately grabbed it back again. "Don't touch it," he warned. "You'll mess up my handiwork."  
  
"It's tight," Daniel complained, a bit wheezy again, but all the same drew his hand back toward his chest, so Jack let go again.  
  
Jack frowned. "It has to be tight. You're short of breath again," he observed, busying himself with ferreting through the med pack. He pulled out an inhaler and checked the label. "Think you can manage to draw a few puffs of this?"  
  
"Don't need it. It's just pain; it feels like I pulled every muscle in my body. I'm all right. I don't think I actually drowned or anything," Daniel told him, and then amended it to a more quizzical, "At least, I don't think I took in much water. Not into my lungs, anyway. Although, I don't know why not."  
  
"You don't know...?" Jack asked, concerned once again about the way Daniel's mental acuity seemed to fluctuate – short term lack of oxygen, maybe?  
  
Daniel shook his head in response that no, he wasn't all that clear on the details, looking worried about missing some chunks of memory. Jack eyed the gentle swirls in the water adjacent to where Daniel had pulled himself up out of the river, suspecting that not remembering certain parts of the whole rotten experience was probably a good thing. "Hey, that doesn't matter," he decided aloud, and reassured Daniel, "You got yourself out, and you're in one piece and still breathing. The rest can wait for Fraiser." He patted Daniel's shoulder, thankful beyond words that the very same tenacity that was such a pain in the ass at times for Jack had come through big time for Daniel here. "Good job, buddy. Really good job."  
  
Daniel didn't seem pleased. "No," he protested, baffling Jack by claiming, "No, that's just it. I didn't." He tried to sit up again, with minimal success. He was obviously trying to get up high enough to see the water, so Jack helped a bit, supporting his shoulders until Daniel could see the birds bobbing around near the shore. "I didn't do it. It wasn't me," he said, and then was robbed of the breath to speak, his own determination working against him as he tried to sit right up and suffered the penalty. Eventually he was forced, not so much by Jack's insistence but by his own battered body, to give up and lie back down.  
  
This time Jack did force him to use the inhaler. Didn't help much. There wasn't much improvement in any way, actually, for a short while. It was only after a solid twenty minutes during which Jack intermittently heaped on the appropriate abuse – repeatedly telling him that see, he ought to have shut up and stayed down when he was told, and for God's sake, go to sleep or something – that Daniel was more or less recovered from the worst of the misery he'd unnecessarily put himself through. Putz, Jack thought fondly. The man could be such a putz.  
  
After that, even though he was curious as to just what Daniel had meant when he'd said that it wasn't him, he didn't do it – didn't do what? – Jack heaped on more of the same, with heavy concentration on the 'why don't you go to sleep or something' part. It didn't take long for Daniel to resignedly give in and close his eyes, and Jack sighed with satisfaction as Daniel drifted off just minutes later. He waited another fifteen minutes, until he was certain Daniel was well enough under that he hopefully wouldn't disturb him, before repeating the assessement he'd made after sending Carter off on her way.  
  
The most obvious problems were the leg injury plus the bloody gouge to Daniel's upper chest, delivered by that mammoth of a duck. Those had been easy to spot, and had been the obvious things to deal with first, after a down and dirty, admittedly amateurish, prodding for possible abdominal injuries. An equally amateurish neuro assessment that he wasn't going to repeat right yet had showed equal, reacting pupils and all limbs, saved the injured leg, capable of moving with decent strength and co-ordination. Well, decent considering the circumstances, anyway. There were other more shallow gouges here and there, though, that hadn't had any attention at all as yet, one of them in a spot that made Jack cringe. Plus there was that casual mention Daniel had made about having twisted his back as he'd fallen down the hill and first entered the water.  
  
Jack hoped that Daniel being able to swim, and, especially, to support himself well enough to survive those rapids, considerably lessened the chances of that back injury being anything more than strained muscles... but he wasn't going to take anything for granted. As far as he was concerned, Daniel'd more than had his exercise for the day; there wasn't going to be any further sitting up or squirreling around while Doc O'Neill was on the job. And on the job he was, he of the oh so delicate hands and bedside manner – after some gentle lifting of filthy, torn cloth to assess the damage, and a variety of associated sympathetic winces, he'd only just started actually cleaning the first of the unattended-to gouges when Daniel softly said, "Ouch."  
  
Crap. "Thought you were asleep."  
  
"I was," Daniel croaked. He winced. "Ow. My throat hurts when I swallow or talk."  
  
Jack stopped what he was doing and looked at Daniel, thinking the obvious – so don't talk – but what he said was, "You feel yourself swallowing while you're asleep?" Not so much because he thought that was a talent worthy of note – he knew Daniel's comments weren't at all related to one another – but evidently because ragging on Daniel was fast becoming a reflexive act. He felt a flush of amusement at that realisation, and didn't even bother trying to hide his smile.  
  
Daniel blew him off with a vaguely rude gesture, his hand flapping at his side for a second and then dropping back onto the ground. "Oh, so funny," Daniel said, and Jack could tell that he too felt that irreverent camaraderie.  
  
He carried on carefully cleaning each wound, trying his best not to disturb Daniel too much as he drowsed between swipes of the antiseptic Jack was using. When he got to the last one, the one under the tear in Daniel's pants at the groin, he was relieved to see the damage there was insignificant, the talon having penetrated the fabric to only just lightly scratch what lay beneath. Daniel fell into what looked to be a proper sleep only moments after Jack was done, so he settled down more comfortably, wriggling himself a Jack-butt sized indentation in the ground at Daniel's side, and waited for word that Teal'c and Carter had reached the Stargate.  
  
That word came not much later, Carter's voice over his comm announcing they'd requested a medical and recovery team. The terrain wasn't very difficult, she advised; there shouldn't be any problem portering a stretcher to the Stargate. But then within minutes she was back on the air again, and Jack sighed, feeling old and burdened as her suddenly anxious voice informed him that Teal'c had just taken off on her. Oh, for crying out loud. He immediately ordered her through the 'gate, not wanting her to be alone in a place where potentially irritable predators hung out. He signed off the moment she acknowledged the command and checked his watch, thanking nature for the course of the river when he saw it had only taken about an hour and a half, at Carter's pace, to make the 'gate. The conversation hadn't woken Daniel, so he had about an hour with nothing better to do than think up all sorts of dire, inventive, progressively innovative ways to wring Teal'c's ass dry for this.  
  
As it turned out, Jack did more light worrying than he did plotting while he waited for Teal'c. He was mildly concerned that Teal'c might run into trouble on the way back, but he worried moreso that something big and hungry might come along to get itself some duck-surprise for dinner and take offence at his and Daniel's presence. And even more worrisome was the indication that Daniel's body wasn't able to maintain the nice warm temperature that being used as a bird's roost had toasted him to – his skin had perceptibly cooled quite a bit since they'd first found him.  
  
The ducks came out of the water to sit ranged along the shoreline. The blaze lit by Teal'c's staff blasts had burned out completely quite a while ago, leaving only smelly black smoke to slowly drift away on the breeze. It was quite possible the birds might be emboldened now that the fire had gone out, so he kept a wary eye on them, and they eyed him right back.  
  
Jack couldn't see much in the way of embers amid the blackened, sooty deadfall that had fuelled the blaze, and gave some thought to getting up to gather wood for a more controlled fire. The afternoon was heading toward evening, and although the sun still shone it was sinking at a decent clip; before long it'd move below the tops of the trees and they'd lose its warmth. He wasn't looking forward to putting weight on his ankle again after having sat for so long, and procrastinated by looking around for the best source of possible fuel as he sat there. Climbing the bank was out of the question; no way was he going so far from Daniel. Maybe Teal'c, recalcitrant son of a bitch that he was, just might come in handy here after all.  
  
He was just getting himself organised to stand up and gather what fuel he could from the immediate area, when multiple spots of movement at the river's edge caught his eye. Crap. They were coming.

 

* * *

  
  
Daniel woke with a dreamlike memory of being rudely prodded at, and feeling every ache and pain in every muscle of his body even though to the best of his knowledge he hadn't yet moved a single one of those muscles. He became aware of the rumble of male voices coming from somewhere off to his right. Wanting nothing more than to disappear back into nothingness, but knowing he couldn't, and suspecting maybe he shouldn't, he turned his head in that direction and opened his eyes.  
  
A beady red glare not six inches from his face shockingly sprang into view. He yelped in both surprise and pain as reflexes had him jerking away before he'd even processed what it was. His neck twanged and his head spun dizzily for a second, the pukey-green beak doing several loop-de-loops before settling again in its proper place on the duck's head. Hey, it was his friend from the water, wasn't it? What looked to Daniel like the same dingy yellow flat head and penny-sized red eyes regarded him calmly, and then...  
  
Quack? It quacked at him, and he was all but certain from the enquiring tone that it was the same one. "Hey. Hi," he said to it, and it did a brief, contented little puff and ruffle in response to his voice. "I want to thank you," he told it solemnly, and only realised he had an audience when a loud guffaw burst out from somewhere nearby.  
  
Jack? Daniel raised his head to look, braving the resultant dizziness, and yes, over there, it was Jack... and, oh. Jack had a friend visiting. A couple of friends, actually; and that was when Daniel noticed that he himself was the focus of interest of more than just the one duck sitting beside his head. One of the smaller ones was perched between his lower legs, its feet tucked neatly into the gap between his calves, its butt-end that faced him bobbing up and down as it industriously pecked at his boots. That must have been what woke him.  
  
"Thank you?" Jack's voice bordered on incredulous. "You're thanking the duck?"  
  
Daniel looked at him, and a snort of laughter escaped him despite that he felt like shit. Sitting on the ground by Daniel's hip, one arm raised up, his hand resting on the top of his head, Jack was stoically enduring the attentions of the two birds intent on discovering whether or not the lacing along the side of his vest was edible. Actually, it was doubtful they cared much about digestibility, given that they'd already pulled and pecked and twisted chunks of it out and were still hard at it, despite the probably unnatural taste and texture of the pieces they'd already mangled.  
  
Uh oh? "Maybe that's not good for them," he worried aloud. "Jack, don't let them eat that."  
  
Jack glared at him. "Oh sure, Daniel. Like I can stop them short of running away, or preferably killing them, which someone," he sneered the last word, "not mentioning any names, won't let me do." In illustration, he lowered his arm back down to his side, elbowing the birds aside in the process, only to receive a spate of hard, irritated pecks to his arm. "Ow! Stop that," he bitched as the birds became more insistent, and sighed as he raised his arm again to allow them access.  
  
Daniel vaguely recalled the same sort of activity directed at him – at the laces of his vest and boots, the trailing edge of his belt, and the loose ends of the velcro straps around his thigh. There must be some pretty huge worms crawling around in the dirt of this planet, he thought, judging from their choice of targets. That seemed reasonable, actually. These were pretty big birds; food sources must be both sizeable and plentiful. Or, were they kept? They weren't afraid... .  
  
"I will remove these creatures, if you wish, O'Neill," another voice intruded, and Daniel looked up to see Teal'c approaching, his arms full of small branches.  
  
Teal'c suddenly noticed he was awake, and stopped dead in his tracks. Daniel wasn't sure what the look that quickly passed over Teal'c's face meant; certainly it couldn't be dread, could it? On anyone else's face that's what Daniel might have suspected. But it was there and gone in an instant, so that Daniel began to doubt he'd even seen anything amiss to begin with. Teal'c stared at him for few blinks longer before nodding respectfully.  
  
"Daniel Jackson. It is good to see you," Teal'c told him, and then once again stood there as if frozen in place. It was... almost creepy.  
  
"Oh, for – Teal'c, knock it off," Jack complained, although about what, precisely, was a complete mystery to Daniel.  
  
Never mind. Despite the fear he'd done something so, so wrong as to make Teal'c that uncomfortable with him, Daniel simply wasn't fit for mysteries. Nor for holding his head up at this angle for very long, either, so he gave that up, losing his view of Jack and the birds just as Jack took a light swat at one of them. The act of resting his head back on the ground momentarily hurt Daniel's neck and shoulders even worse than holding it up had, and that drew his attention to other pains. Chief among them was a burning tightness in his thigh that made him feel slightly nauseous, and his chest hurt too. He tested his complaining lungs – or more likely it was his chest muscles, but he wasn't sure – pulling in a deeper breath, and yes, the pain increased when he did that. Quite a lot. So okay, no doing that, then.  
  
Noise drew his attention, as Teal'c came around to his left side where Daniel could see him with just a turn of his head. Teal'c dropped the wood he carried onto a pile of the same and crouched next to it, readying it for use. Immediately, the bird perched between Daniel's legs quacked excitedly and scrambled over him to get at this new gift, its feet punishing his left knee as it went. The already sour look on Teal'c's face intensified as the duck quite clearly spoiled his plan to light the fire by climbing all over the woodpile, industriously searching for new things to eat.  
  
Daniel frowned when Teal'c roughly shoved at the duck, but it simply squawked its displeasure and waddled off, avoiding any further curt treatment. Daniel knew Jack and Teal'c didn't understand, and their attitude was not unexpected, but he didn't like seeing these animals treated that way. He owed these birds, and everything about them screamed of more intelligence than one would attribute to Earthside waterfowl. In fact, it was entirely possible that –  
  
Uhm, Teal'c was staring at him again. What? What had he done that was so bad? He hadn't realised until too late that he was in the way of Teal'c's attempt to ward of f the predator at the 'gate... he hadn't moved quickly enough; maybe that was it?  
  
Teal'c inclined his head in acknowledgement of Daniel and averted his stare to focus on the ground between them, rather than at Daniel. "I apologise, Daniel Jackson." He crouched there, woodenly still, and then, amazingly enough, repeated himself, saying, "I am very sorry."  
  
Repeating himself was not something Daniel had ever heard Teal'c do before. It was so uncharacteristic of him that it was unnerving. Wondering what the hell was going on and why Teal'c might make such a big deal out of swatting at the bird, Daniel stammered out a confused, "Uh, oh, well. That's, uhm, that's okay. No harm done. It's okay, Teal'c."  
  
"It is not." Teal'c abruptly rose and stalked off, quickly disappearing from Daniel's limited field of view.  
  
"You're not supposed to accept the apology, Daniel. Geez, get with the program here, will you?"  
  
Jack's voice cut through his confusion, and what he'd just said warranted the risk of setting off another attack of dizziness. Daniel lifted his head, hoping his effort to look Jack's way would be taken as the request for an explanation it was. But this was Jack he was dealing with – instead, Jack simply waved at him, an insouciant, jaunty little hello that felt so misplaced that Daniel wondered if maybe he was still asleep, dreaming this.  
  
His muddled thoughts were interrupted by Jack's comm, and as Sam's voice carried faintly over to him, Daniel realised he hadn't even been aware she was missing. She'd been here, though, hadn't she? Yes, before Jack had bound his leg, Sam had been at his side. Right? He recalled her hands on his face... or, could that have been Jack's hand? Regardless, he knew she had been the one to start the work on his leg; he clearly remembered the care she'd taken, and the soft words of encouragement that helped him through the worst of the initial cleaning of the wound.  
  
Either he was more confused than he thought, and misremembering the order of things, or a fair amount of time must have passed while he slept, because evidently Sam had gone all the way back to the Stargate and now was on her way to them with a recovery team. A couple of hours, she told Jack, and Daniel figured he could handle that. His was dizzy and nauseated, his leg hurt like hell, as did his chest, and every muscle in his body ached incessantly, but all the same he'd cherish that couple of hours for the respite they were – he knew the trip back to the Stargate would be anything but a piece of cake. Even if they gave him an analgesic, it'd still hurt a lot worse than this unless they put him out entirely, but that wasn't their modus operandi. Nope; injured people in the field weren't allowed to get drugged into a completely dependent stupor unless they were so noisy as to pose a defensive risk. Oh, hey, so maybe he'd scream like a baby? Sure; he could do that.  
  
Jack fussed himself out from under the attentions of the birds, which had switched from his vest to his belt and boot laces at some point, and stepped over Daniel's legs to cross over the pile of branches Teal'c had fetched. Daniel watched him carefully shoo the duck away from its reinvigorated search for food, and stuff some bits of fire-starter into niches between the branches. The rest of the wood caught readily as small flames licked at them from below and between, and Jack sat back, looking satisfied with himself.  
  
"Teal'c did the hard part," Daniel reminded him, just for something to say. Despite the way his throat hurt from whatever irritant was in the water he'd swallowed, he wanted conversation; he wanted a distraction from feeling battered and confused, and from the odd sense of culpability that lurked at the back of his mind.  
  
Jack nodded. "Yep, well, Teal'c seems to like making stuff hard right about now," he said, both the words and the impatience which tinged his voice baffling Daniel even further. "You should talk to him. Or he should talk to you. Whichever. I'll send him over." Jack abruptly scrambled up and was gone, calling loudly for Teal'c to get his ass over to Daniel "tits sweet".  
  
Utterly confused and worried by both Teal'c's and Jack's moods, Daniel closed his eyes, pain and exhaustion washing over him. He wasn't so sure that conversation was the ticket after all, if it was to come more with discomfort than ease. He waited, wishing his body would leave him alone and let him drift off, and opened his eyes again when he sensed something large settling quietly next to him. It wasn't Teal'c.  
  
"Hey, Mom," he greeted the huge duck. "Thanks for the living blankets. It probably helped save my life... again. And, especially..." he paused, feeling a bit self-conscious even though it was just him and her; after all, he was talking to a duck here. No matter how intelligent – for a duck – she might be, she certainly didn't understand English.  
  
She quacked long and low at him, repeated it, and then made a strange scritching noise.  
  
Weird. Wait... was that an acknowledgement of some kind? Did she sense his mood and his gratitude? No, probably not. For all he knew it was a sign of indigestion. Boot laces were hardly her usual diet.  
  
"Well, just thank you for everything. For the warmth; for the river – I mean, you had to have helped, right? I'm too heavy for them." He waved a hand toward where the friendly duck he'd first met in the water still complacently sat to his right. He thought maybe it was asleep with its eyes open or something; it hadn't moved since he'd woken up. Did Earth ducks close their eyes when they slept? Never mind.  
  
"Anyway, I just wanted you to know how thankful I am. I owe you a great debt," he finished off, stupidly a bit disappointed, but not at all surprised, when the duck simply cocked her head and placidly stared at him in response.  
  
"Of what do you speak, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c crouched down near him, next to the large bird, which didn't even flinch at his presence. He glanced at the duck and then focused on the ground, clearly avoiding looking right at Daniel. "What debt could you owe these creatures?"  
  
Uhm. Teal'c sat there, waiting, and Daniel found himself reluctant to explain. It wasn't so much that he was afraid Teal'c would deride him for being convinced the ducks had hauled him out of the river at the last moment before he would have drowned – the whole team was aware that deriding him was Jack's domain, and that was okay, because Daniel was used to derision.  
  
With Teal'c, things were different. Their shared history, his and Teal'c's, imbued their relationship not only with a strong sense of commitment but also with a bucketload of ambiguity. Deriding his ideas was one thing; rejection of him was another; it was pretty obvious Teal'c already had some sort of problem with him and didn't want to be anywhere near him if he could help it. Teal'c was only over here because Jack had bullied him into it. Given all that, Daniel wasn't sure how Teal'c would react to a theory that involved oversized ducks being both sentient and moral enough to have acted as lifeguards, not to mention intelligent enough to know what to do with a hypothermic human.  
  
He didn't think he was up to finding out just why Teal'c was so disgusted with him, at least not right now. And he certainly wasn't interested in possibly exacerbating the problem with a truthful answer to Teal'c's question. "They kept me warm," he mumbled, fudging on it  
  
Looked like Teal'c didn't buy it. He glanced at Daniel and then at the duck, hHis brow furrowed into a frown. But then his expression cleared into formal impassivity, and he performed the same deferential head bow to the duck as he had to Daniel. "I too am indebted to you," he gravely told the duck. "I thank you for the life of my shal'ma'kar."  
  
Shal'ma'kar? Shal was... wait, yes, it was –  
  
"There are updraughts and eddies in the water adjacent to this location." Teal'c's voice interfered with Daniel's attempt at translating the term he'd used. Okay, sure. If he said so. Whatever. Kar; kar meant – "While it remains possible the current assisted in your attaining the shore, it is clear you believe the aid of your companions ensured your continued survival. I only regret that I am not counted as such."  
  
What? As if Daniel's head wasn't spinning enough, he felt himself whirl off into left field at Teal'c's statement. And then the full contextual meaning of Shal'ma'kar hit him, and he was speechless with surprise. Okay, well, not entirely speechless. "Teal'c! What the hell are you talking about? Servitude? You don't owe anyone servitude, much less me."  
  
"I made a grave misjudgement, Daniel Jackson. and have compounded it many times on this day. I am responsible for your fall into the river. I..."  
  
Teal'c bowed his head low, as if... as if ashamed, Daniel thought, amazed that Teal'c thought he was responsible for what had happened. It was an accident, an unfortunate collision between the too fast and the too slow to act. If anyone was to shoulder blame – and no one was – they'd both be equally culpable.  
  
Daniel abruptly remembered that wasn't the way the life the Goa'uld had inflicted upon the Jaffa worked, and despite his home now being with the Tau'ri, Teal'c was still bound by most of the mores he'd grown up with and lived by. In that culture, responsibility for an error of judgement would carry a penalty equivalent to the so-called crime. And in this case, it was pretty obvious Teal'c considered that his action essentially amounted to an errant deathblow.  
  
Teal'c was wrong, but there wasn't much point in Daniel telling him so, nor in reminding him that he was amonst the Tau'ri now – that no one was going to demand recompense for what Teal'c thought he'd done. Teal'c was stuck between the rock of his upbringing and culture, and the hard place of disbelief and rejection of those behaviours by the Tau'ri.  
  
As he realised the implications of Teal'c's predicament, Daniel sighed in tired frustration with his own sense of responsibility. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and suffer in peace until the team arrived to take him home, but there was no way he could leave Teal'c hanging like this. He opened his mouth to say so, but the only thing he got out was Teal'c's name before he was interrupted.  
  
Head raised to stare off across the landscape – at what, Daniel had no idea – his face as if made of carved stone, Teal'c announced with obvious difficulty, "I am kel'pahk."  
  
Daniel blinked in astonishment. "You are not!" he blurted out, offended at the very idea of that word being aimed, by anyone, at Teal'c. "If you're kel'pahk, then I'm... I'm... I'm shak'mar'teh," Daniel claimed, feeling it was the least he could do given that he was just as responsible as Teal'c.  
  
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Shak'ma'teh," he corrected. "You are male."  
  
Oh. Yeah, of course; he knew that. He'd was recovering from being shot in the leg and almost drowning – makinge a kindergarten mistake here and there was understandable.  
  
"And you are not," Teal'c declared, dark fire in his eyes as he warned, "Do not attempt to falsely minimise my error, Daniel Jackson."  
  
No, he wasn't trying to do that, not per se, anyway. "I thought you just said I was your shal'ma'kar, Teal'c?" At the look of surprise and then chastened shame on Teal'c's face, Daniel pressed on as quickly as his flagging stamina would allow. "Look, I don't think you really believe what you are telling me, or you wouldn't have just warned me off, would you? That's hardly the way to talk to one's shal'ma'kar."  
  
Daniel reached out, his hand falling just short of Teal'c's knee. The big duck stretched its neck out and lightly pecked at his fingers, and he withdrew his hand. "Ow. Look, Teal'c, I'm sorry, I don't mean to dishonour your ways, but you're wrong here. Your ways don't even apply. You reacted quickly and I reacted slowly, and somewhere in the middle my leg ended up in the way."  
  
The fact Teal'c was even willing to look at him in response was encouraging. "You know it's true," he urged, too tired and his throat too sore to carry on much further with this. "If you don't agree, then could we at least delay the ritual execution until Saturday? I'm all done in."  
  
He reached out again, adjusting his aim this time so that his hand fell onto Teal'c's leg. The duck immediately made for his fingers, but Teal'c placed his own hand overtop of Daniel's, shielding him. "As you say," Teal'c allowed. "I shall pencil Saturday in on my calendar."  
  
Okay. He had until Saturday, then, to work on getting Teal'c over this shal'ma'kar - kel'pahk stuff. But when Teal'c added, "When you have recovered sufficient strength, I would have you tell me of your theories regarding these creatures, and many others, Daniel Jackson," Daniel knew it wouldn't need any more time than it'd take to wax on about the ducks for them to solve this. Without losing face, Teal'c was meeting him halfway by designing his own version of just retribution for his perceived crime.  
  
Daniel was pleased it had been so easy, and that Teal'c had chosen to enable one of Daniel's most favourite and yet least able to openly indulge in things to do as a means of recompense... but on the other hand it was kinda insulting, illustrating just how uninteresting Teal'c found his theories.  
  
Okay, fine, so he'd make it good, then. "What letter are you up to?" he asked, and when Teal'c, sounding a bit confused at the question, told him he was partway through the letter L now, Daniel smiled with anticipation through his advancing exhaustion. As soon as he was able to talk without pain, his revenge of Teal'c's retribution would be at hand.  
  
The Ls were full of great fodder for theorising. In many, many languages.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
